


Served Cold

by Firefly_Ca



Category: Glee
Genre: Angst, Consent Issues, F/F, F/M, Glee Angst Meme, Implied or Off-stage Rape/Non-con, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Rape, neurological condition, non-con Kurt/Dave
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-21
Updated: 2011-01-21
Packaged: 2017-11-19 21:28:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 30,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/577842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Firefly_Ca/pseuds/Firefly_Ca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sue always knew McKinley would fall apart without her. She just never thought she'd be away long enough for it to happen. Written during season 2.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

Sue Sylvester can do many things. She is an internationally ranked cheerleading coach who has led her underlings to national victory six consecutive times, and who  _will_  justify her purchase of a hovercraft for next year's competition to the school board, even if she must exercise all her powers of debate and logic to do so. Which will only be necessary if the blackmail doesn't come through, and her trusty rophenal and Black Book of Staged Compromising Situations haven't failed her yet. It's the best app she's bought for her iPhone to date and she fully plans to give the creators a favourable review. Of three stars, because even though the latest update included cross-referencing, it still doesn't have the much-needed self-editing feature, and there is  _always_  room for improvement.

 

Sue Sylvester sees herself as an Amazonian warrior, a fortress of pants-wetting, terrifying, awe-inspiring power, and ever since she convinced an oncologist to give her that mastectomy things have only gotten better. She has to admit her ancestral giantess supergoddesses knew what they were doing. There's hardly any drag at all any more as she lifts her bullhorn to her mouth to break the spirits of her Cheerios who are  _just_  on this side of crying, or to ensure Schuester hears her very important thoughts on his latest hairdo, which she has taken to calling WD40 Chic.

 

Sue Sylvester is a warrior. Sue Sylvester is a goddess. Sue Sylvester is a notary republic. Sue Sylvester is  _going_  to win the Nobel Prize before she turns 30. Sue Sylvester does  _not_ get ill.

 

"God, Sue, I know I'm not your favourite person, but are you sure you're going to be alright?"

 

His voice is a high whine, irritating and gnat-like. A buggy smear on her perfect sea of calm.

 

"Of course I'm fine, Shirley Temple. I don't see why everyone is being so fussy about this. I don't even need to be here right now. This is nothing that couldn't be handled with strict enforcement of the Sue Sylvester Master Cleanse. It bodily evicts the toxins right out of you. You should try it sometime. Your head would probably be clearer without the noxious chemical buildup your hair gels expose you to."

 

Schuester rolls his eyes, but before Sue can chalk up another win, he says, "Sue, your appendix  _ruptured_  this morning. Your master cleanse won't do anything. You need this operation so they can  _literally scoop out_ all the poison circulating through your body. Why on earth didn't you tell anyone you were in pain sooner?"

 

Sue sniffs at him disdainfully. "I wasn't. I've had worse gas after half-price burrito night at the local House of Tacos, so I was walking it off. I'm impervious to pain, William. Surely you know that by now."

 

If Sue's teeth are slightly more clenched than usual as she watches nurses flit around her bed and begin the preparations for moving her to emergency surgery, and if while she watches she momentarily forgets about the presence of the ridiculous Raphaelic cherub of a man standing next to her, she supposes that the moment of weakness can be forgiven. It's not that she's in pain exactly, it's just that hospitals are distracting places.

 

"Sue?" Will – no,  _Schuester_  – asks gently, calling her back to reality. "You wanted someone to take Figgins some paperwork? They said you aren't letting them operate until you send it to him."

 

Sue gestures vaguely to the pile of papers on the table next to her. It's getting harder and harder to focus on the task at hand. She's not sure what's in that IV bag of hers, but it is seriously interfering with her ability to focus on what is important: namely, her reputation.

 

"My contract. In the case of my unlikely but prolonged incapacitation and subsequent absence from the school grounds, I've given myself the right to call in the best coach for my Cheerios, whether or not they have been sanctioned as fit to be around children by the board of education. Or the local law enforcement. Or the national JTTF."

 

"OK, you  _have_  to tell me who wrote your contract for you," Will breaks in, as he picks up the stack of papers. "How is that even possible?"

 

"William I will not tolerate interruptions. My contract will not allow it. Now, in your hands you hold my carefully chosen _temporary_  replacement for Cheerios coach. He is focused. He is hard-nosed. He will not stand for insubordination or copious fatigue-induced nausea as legitimate excuses for a five-minute break. He the best cheerleading coach a squad could ask for, except for the fact that he is not me, a massive failing that even he has not been able to rectify."

 

Will looks at the papers and his face takes on an expression of befuddled disbelief. It's comforting to know that even when her body betrays her, William Schuester's staggeringly low intelligence will never reach higher levels than where it already is, hovering precariously above brain death.

 

"Albert Schweitzer?" She hears him ask, as she is moved to a bed with wheels and the nurses leave him in their dust. "Are you kidding me?"

 

"I don't kid about my Cheerios, Schuester," Sue calls out over her shoulder. "Schweitzer is flying in on my private jet as we speak. You get that paperwork back to Figgins immediately. I don't want those girls thinking they get a break because of this, and if you hurry, everything should be in place in time for his arrival. They can still get in a good six hours of practise today! Slothfulness is for the weaker species who only leave their ivory towers of multilingual academia to find more food and defecate once a day, not my Cheerios!"

 

" _What_?"

 

"Sloths and you, William! Slothfulness is for  _sloths and you_!"


	2. Chapter 1

**2 1/2 Months Later**

Something is wrong. Sue can feel it. It feels like a nature documentary where the endangered predator, noble and majestic, has been re-released back to the wild after the animal preservationists have saved it from a broken jaw, only to discover that in its absence all the antelope and zebra have forgotten how to interact with it. Oh, the regular segments of the unwashed masses still cower away in fear, averting their eyes from Sue's domineering strength and authority, but the important peasantry don't seem to notice her at all.

 

She first notices something is off when Jessica and...Lackluster Back Handspring walk past her without so much as a second glance her direction. That's not right. Sue has her Cheerios trained to be aware of her every movement within the school grounds. They should always be craning their heads back to her face, waiting to see the slightest indication of disapproval so they can adjust their attitudes accordingly. Just like sunflowers, if sunflowers had the common sense to worship something worth looking at. This is not good. Damn those incompetent surgeons for almost letting her die on the table, and then having the gall to miss some of the infection. If it hadn't been for them, she would have been back over a month ago. Schweitzer may be good, but like she said to Schuester, he still isn't  _Sue_. He just isn't good enough to sustain her perfectly running system for longer than a week and a half.

 

And speaking of that poodle-headed man whore, Sue looks down the hallway to see him walking her direction. He doesn't notice her, because he's too busy perving on Jessica and Lacky as they walk past, his face all sad and thoughtful, like he's thinking of all the ways he'd like to mentor them and save them from themselves. With his penis. It's completely disgusting, but it's something new, too. The man is a hopeless slut, but at least he's always stuck to his own age bracket before now. He's been away from his insane and undoubtedly kinky wife for too long, she supposes.

 

"Hello there, Chin-Butt!" She calls out, cheerfully. "Quit undressing them with their eyes, please! I know it's been _months_  since you've had the chance to play Naughty School Girl, but that doesn't mean you get to shop for a new one."

 

He doesn't even glare at her, he just...looks at her. And he looks so  _sad_  and  _disappointed_  before he sighs and walks past her into his Spanish classroom. Sue almost stops dead in her tracks. She knows her insults could use some work, but she didn't think it was  _that bad_. If even Will isn't rising to the bait anymore, her touch must be so lost it is currently in orbit. She feels shaken and disturbed as she walks to Figgins' office for her debriefing with Schweitzer.  
 

***  
 

Figgins is as sycophantic and ineffective as always, but seems to be having a hard time deciding whose ass he should be kissing: hers or Schweitzer's. Sue is infuriated because the correct answer is obviously her. If he's trying to make anyone who is  _not her_  feel happy, it looks like she may be forced to retrain her principal, and it's taken a lot of time and effort for her to get Figgins right where she wants him.

 

"Oh  _Sue_!" He effuses, flailing behind the desk like a little girl who is telling her mother all about the time she saw the back of Zack Effron's left elbow. "Schweitzer has had a  _wonderful_  success record with your Cheerios! They are leaders at the school and we are all so proud of them! And they have become so  _focused_  and  _committed_  to your vision. I'm sure you will be delighted!"

 

"They were always focused and committed to my vision," Sue says, darkly. She feels a little betrayed. Schweitzer was hired to maintain the status quo. She doesn't like hearing about anyone making any  _changes_. That was not part of the plan.

 

"Of course they were," Schweitzer reassures her, not changing from his stance of attention, hands gripping the bullhorn behind his back as he stands ramrod straight and looking past Sue's shoulder. She likes his respect for his betters, at least she can say that about him. "I only saw that your squad was in the unfortunately common teenage habit of putting _their_  needs before the team. I took the liberty of mentoring them. Bringing them around to your superior way of thinking."

                                

"I find it laughable that even you could claim to know the inner workings of my mind," Sue says, her lip curling up in disdain.

 

"I know you don't like seeing your squad diminished in their place in the social echelon at McKinley," Schweitzer says, without missing a beat. "I know you are displeased when any other activities get in the way of your pursuit of excellence."

 

Figgins is unable to contain himself any longer and bursts in with,

 

"Sue! Mr. Coach Schweitzer took it upon himself to create a new rule of undivided focus for the Cheerios! It has done _wonderful_  things for the morale of the student body."

 

"What are you talking about?" Sue asks, an uneasy feeling creeping over her. She doesn't like where she thinks this is going.

 

"Cheerios are now only allowed to partake in one performing arts extracurricular activity so their creative energies are focused on being the  _best_!" Figgins, the traitor, beams. "This way the students all feel good about themselves because they have a better chance of being winners in everything they put their minds to. Best of all, the glee club has lost  _four_ members! There are no longer enough of them to compete this year at Sectionals! Without Sectionals there will be no placing at Regionals  _or_  Nationals. They can't win! There is no reason to keep them running through to the end of the year now! I've already started renting out the auditorium space to church groups and Alcoholics Anonymous! We almost have enough money to get a Math teacher again!"

 

Sue feels a little dizzy. The colour is leaching out of her world. "New Directions is...gone?"

 

Schweitzer smiles at her conspiratorially as he says,

 

"I know you felt they held your team back. Consider this my welcome back present."

 

"Thanks." Sue says, flatly. "Go away."

 

"Oh," says Schweitzer, startled and a little lost. "Do you want me to meet you back at your office to give my report on what happened during your sabbatical?"

 

"What?" Sue says, irritably. "No, I mean go away. Leave. I'm back now, you're no longer a teacher and officially trespassing. It doesn't look good for a strange man with an unhealthy cheerleader obsession to be seen wandering the halls of a high school. Someone will call that  _To Catch a Predator_  guy. Once I've picked an impartial third party and given her his number."

 

As Schweitzer walks out the door in confusion, it occurs to Sue that this would have been a good line to use on Schuester in the hallway, and maybe she should find him and say it to him now, but somehow the thrill has gone.

 

Ever since its inception, she's dreamed of the day New Directions would die an undignified, untimely death. When she's feeling sad about life, she concocts elaborate ways it might be brought about as a way of cheering herself up. It's become like a hobby to her, but she never acts on her plans. Glee club is supposed to always be there, feeling threatened by her presence and unsure of its survival, she realizes. An enemy that fears her is what makes the enemy worth having, not seeing it defeated. She feels as lost as polio must have felt when Jenny McCarthy was told that her baby was only hyperactive after all, and she had been protesting the sleazy world of back alley baby tattoo parlours for nothing.

 

She'll have to find a new hobby now, she realizes. Her favourite rival club has been decimated and she wasn't even there to watch it burn, let alone be the lucky person holding the match. Sometimes life could be disgustingly unfair.  
 

***  
 

It's on the long walk back to her office that the world ends. It shouldn't matter, at least, not to  _her_. It's not as though Sue actually  _cares_  about McKinley High's disenfranchised. At least not the ones who annoy instead of amuse her, but she still understands the importance yin and yang, how there are balances and exceptions to everything, including the social structure of high schools. Unlikely friendships and alliances are the exceptions that prove the rule, and you don't mess with them. When those balances are disrupted, it's never followed by anything good.

                                                              

There's a flurry of motion in her periphery and the hint of coldness sailing past her a second later. Sue is used to the splash and the gasp from the latest victim of the slushie attack, and would walk by without taking a closer look, but then she notices the familiar colours of the Cheerios outfits and decides she might as well offer a few tips on throwing technique so she can get back into the swing of this whole teaching thing.

 

That's when her brain catches up with what her eyes are seeing. Santana Lopez is looking thoroughly unimpressed, standing in front of Rachel Berry with an empty slushie cup in one hand, her other resting on her hip. She looks bored, like she doesn't care about hurting Rachel, or getting under her skin. She just looks like she's keeping a standing appointment that she doesn't care about one way or the other. That's not the surprising (and if Sue is being honest, horrifying) thing. Standing next to her, also with an empty slushie cup and (mostly) detached expression is Kurt Hummel.

 

And he's just scored a direct hit on Mercedes Jones.

 

Sue doesn't interfere in any way, she just watches. She's not stunned, because Sue Sylvester does not get stunned, except for that unfortunate time on the coast when she was slapped in the face by a careless fisherman with a Kraken tentacle (she refuses to believe it was only a small squid). No, this is Sue Sylvester observing. It's one of her better skills, and it's helped her win countless awards her whole life. She can find the truth in any situation, and can use that information to give people what they need while withholding what they want. Sue is a power broker and you need information to broke power, so for now she watches. In a completely non-stunned way.

 

Rachel, for her part, is acting mostly as expected. After throwing a worried glance to Mercedes, she turns back to Santana and squares her shoulders in defiance. Even though Sue can't stand the little midget, she's always been impressed by the way a person so short is able to look down her nose at everyone around her.

 

"I hope that made you feel better," Rachel snips primly, as though she's not slowly dripping blue raspberry ice onto the floor. "But your bullying only serves to make me stronger, and I feel it only fair to warn you that if you continue on this path, there will be a  _very_  unflattering chapter dedicated to you in my future autobiography." She turns her gaze to Kurt next. "And nothing you're going through could justify doing this to Mercedes, but I want you to know that I'm still your friend. Even if you're not mine anymore."

 

Sue raises an eyebrow at that.

 

Mercedes doesn't say anything and only stands there staring at Kurt, looking for all the world like she's just been stabbed through the heart by her best friend, which, well...

 

Rachel grabs hold of Mercedes' hand and leads her to the nearest bathroom, Santana and Kurt watching them go. Santana hasn't said a single word throughout all of this and her mouth remains firmly shut, but Sue doesn't miss the way she looks around the hall carefully as the crowd starts to break up now that the show is over. She seems to be looking for someone, and by the way her lips tighten into a thin line after a moment and her expression becomes dark, she was obviously hoping that person would not be there, and that has not turned out to be the case. Before Sue can look around to see who Santana is scowling at though, the angry girl reaches over and takes Kurt's hand.

 

Kurt is staring at the empty slushie cup with a slightly vacant expression. He looks as stunned as Sue is most emphatically  _not_ , but he glances up when he feels Santana take his hand. His face instantly shuts down as he looks at her expression, but Sue still notices the way his shoulders hunch in slightly, and as the two Cheerios walk past her, she isn't struck by how protective Santana is being of someone who isn't her dumb puppy sex fiend "best friend," or how accepting Rachel and even Mercedes seemed to be of the attack. She's struck by how tired Kurt looks as he allows Santana to lead him down the hallway like he's a lost child being taken to mall security.

 

Sue needs to find out what this is about, and she knows who she needs to talk to. There's only one person in the Cheerios – at the school period – that Sue trusts to be her eyes and ears, to tell her everything without tainting the information with ridiculous things like feelings and opinions.

 

She needs to go find Becky.

 

***

 

"What do you mean, she's out? There's only one person in North America who has the authority to kick Cheerios off the squad and unless there have been staggering advances in human cloning and someone broke into my house and stole DNA from the half empty bottle of protein shake I left congealing on the counter while I was undergoing invasive surgery,  _Sue Sylvester did not authorise this._ "

 

Sue is beyond infuriated. She can't even come up with a insult good enough in the midst of this clusterfuck of a situation to throw at her head cheerleader, which is shocking since there's she's got so much material to draw from. A slutty hypocrite Catholic who could still stand to lose some of the (twice) bastard baby weight before she crushes the bottom of the pyramid? Not to mention the idiot look currently on her face, like she's surprised Sue is taking Becky's departure so poorly.

 

"...There are people outside of North America who can kick Cheerios off the squad?" Quinn finally asks, and   _God_ , Sue needs a better leader for her girls.

 

"I owed Nelson Mandela a favour and do not think you can get away with changing the subject, preggers!"

 

"But Coach Sylvester, no one threw Becky off the team," Quinn protests, looking more put out than frightened, which is another unhappy change to add to the laundry list. "She  _quit_ , that's all. I know you like her, and I asked her why she was leaving, but she just said it was better this way. I don't think she's going to come back."

 

"You're not telling me everything," Sue says, with sudden clarity. "If you don't tell me everything you know about this, I will make you regret it. You can't hide the truth from me, porky. I own your soul while you hold your title! Start  _talking_."

 

Quinn may not be showing the proper amount of terror in the face of Sue's rage right now, but she's still hedging. Annoyed, but not enough to speak her mind completely. Unfortunately for Quinn, Sue needs to fight with  _someone_ right now, and she's not too proud to attack her head Cheerio to start one. Unfortunately for  _Sue_ , it never crossed her mind that her head Cheerio was just as ready to fight.

 

"You are such a  _bitch_!" Quinn yells abruptly, as her eyes start to water and Sue looks at her incredulously. "If she left it's your fault! You keep going  _on_  and  _on_ about how none of us are good enough, and when you're gone and we think maybe we'll finally get a break, you hire some other  _asshole_  and who reports directly to you and he's even worse! All we've been hearing is that we're not working hard enough, we're not committed, we're not pretty, we're not smart enough, and no matter what we do, we're still going to be in deep shit when you come back and see how little progress we've made. And God help us if we actually  _need_  something, because Coach Schweitzer isn't getting paid to  _care about our problems_. And you know, whatever, because at least when we're Cheerios, we're popular, right? Becky didn't even have that, so when your  _monkey_  starts telling her she's ugly and she's stupid, and when she leaves every day  _in tears_ , why the fuck do you think she'd stick around so you can  _both_  have a go at her?"

 

Sue is feeling that vaguely panicky sensation she gets when someone forgets their place and stands up to her, and actually manages to do it well. She isn't letting herself think about how helpless Quinn looks underneath her anger, or how she was too sick to arrange for Schweitzer report back to her, so why did he tell her squad that it was happening? Her face is frozen in a nervous insane parody of a placating smile when she finally manages to say,

 

"Yes. Well. I wasn't aware you knew how to swear, Fabray. But I see that you do. Congratulations."

 

She shuts her mouth then, hard, before she loses what little control she has of the situation and asks Quinn if cheerleading is really that bad when she's in charge. Are her Cheerios usually this close to raving lunatics? She knows Schuester thinks they are, but he's an idiot. Sue's not a nurturer by nature. She knows she has enough of her mother in her to never be able to cut it as a mother herself, but still...she is her mother's daughter, and she is not meant to nurture, she is meant to protect, like those guardian statues at the British Museum. They're not the kind of creature you talk to after school about the cute boy you like, but when that boy starts to throw rocks, they're who you want to hide behind.

 

Sue wants her girls to live in fear of her, but she wants them to know she's on their side. Up until her return, she thought they  _did_  know that. Now she thinks about Becky, crying because she's terrified her Coach will come back and start calling her ugly and stupid, and Quinn accusing her of torturing her squad instead of toughening them up and she realizes something very important.

 

The next time an organ explodes inside of her, she is scheduling her surgery for the weekend, because nothing good ever comes from leaves of absence.

 

***

 

 

The rest of her first day back passes in a haze, with only the odd detail rising to the surface. She notices Eva looks like she's been wringing her hands so compulsively that the new rock on her finger is actually scratching the skin of her opposite hand. Maybe her crazy is just running away from her again, like the time she wouldn't let any students into her office without spritzing them with hand sanitizer, hovering with her spray bottle like a very nervous crop duster until Sue decided enough was enough and started to stand guard by her door with her own squirt bottle filled with diluted Tobasco sauce (Figgins had given her a lecture about that one, but it still worked). Sue isn't convinced this is like all the other times though. Elvira looks at the Cheerios and just seems sad to the point of panic, but being the well-meaning incompetent that she is, she can't sort out what to do about it.

 

She's not the only faculty who's noticed the team is in crisis, either. Sue sees Beiste staring at Kurt with a worried expression as the boy is approached by that lummox of a hockey player at noon. Kurt looks up with apprehension as the jock mutters something to him in a quiet but angry tone. Sue curses the noisy hallways for impeding her pristine hearing to the point where she can't tell what is being said. If she can't hear Beiste possibly can't, because Sue can tell just by looking at the football coach that her ears are inferior. Like the rest of her. That doesn't stop Beiste from stepping forward as soon as Karofsky grabs Kurt by the shoulder and starts steering him down the hall to God knows where, likely to use her vocal accompaniment as a punching bag. Defending her Cheerios should be  _her_  job, but Beiste is so fast it's almost as though she's been waiting for this to happen. She marches up to Kurt and takes hold of his other shoulder.

 

"Hummel, I need to talk to you about kicking," She says, not sparing Karofsky a second glance. "I know you keep saying you're done with football, but that doesn't mean you can't take the time to hear me out."

 

Kurt relaxes fractionally and the look he gives Beiste is almost grateful. Sue is in a momentary panic over thoughts of _more_  desertion until she remembers that the football team already has a kicker this year, and he's not even that bad. Beiste's excuse is pathetic and transparent, but fortunately for Kurt, Karofsky is only as smart as the average jock. Sue feels slightly queasy at the idea, but she's starting to wonder if she should be asking her co-workers for their insight on her own team, especially later still in the day when she sees Enid swoop down upon Brittany and usher into her office when she spots the girl staring blankly into her open locker, sniffling sadly.

 

Sue has all but decided that there could be worse things than asking these two women for their questionable help as the day draws to an end. But if there's one thing Sue believes in, it's taking things in small steps. At least when the walking is in a direction that she doesn't want to be going. So she kicks things off by coming to the conclusion that she will not abide suffering through her first Cheerios practise back without Becky by her side, happy again in the knowledge that she is better than her peers.

 

"Pillsbury!" She barks, sticking her head into the guidance office, ignoring the pitiful "Pillsbury-Howell, please" to force the flighty head case to help her fix her Cheerios.

 

"Where's Becky? She's going to be late for Cheerios practise."

 

"Oh, um, Sue, that's...that's nice of you to worry, but I  _think_  Becky has quit the Cheerios, so-"

 

"Pillsbury I don't recall asking for you to  _think_ , I just want you to  _answer_. Chop chop, Alice Ripley. I need to track her down before her mother comes to get her. I will not let my Cheerios take the easy way out."

 

Ilena sighs, and while she could never look intimidating, or even sombre, she looks slightly less anime when she says,

 

"Sue, I don't think you should talk to Becky. I know how angry you can get when someone tries to quit the squad, but that girl was very hurt by what her coach said to her these past few months. Some things simply aren't acceptable, and even though you are still very loud and I run the risk of you assaulting me with chilli sauces again, I won't change my mind about –"

 

"Emma," Sue interrupts, because  _she_  is able to be sombre, and  _fine_ , maybe she  _does_  know the woman's real name. She will deny this later, though. "That man was no one's coach.  _I_  am their coach. Becky has impeccable instincts. I know that, because she instinctively knows she should be like me. If she decided she should quit, it was the right decision. But I'm back now, and I would like to let her know that  _I_  know she was right, and that while she may have quit  _a_ cheerleading squad, she has not yet quit  _my_ cheerleading squad. Are you going to tell me where she is or not?"

 

Emma beams at her, maybe because Sue cares about Becky, but likely because Sue landed on the right name. She tells Sue where to find her prodigal Cheerio. Sue responds to the offensive news the only way she knows how.

 

"I'd quit grinning like that if I were you, Ingrid. It makes you look like a muppet. One of the...stupid ones."

 

Damn. That was rough. She's really got to get the insults back up to scratch. Oh well, Sue decides, as she morosely treks towards Schuester's old office off the music room. At least she'll have plenty of hair jokes to fill the next few minutes up and help her get back in the habit.

 

Co-operating with your co-workers is  _exhausting._

 

***

 

Sue peers into the office first before going in, slightly curious as to why Schue insists on staying in this office when he doesn't have glee club anymore. It would make more sense to stay in his Spanish classroom to get caught up on paperwork, but maybe he's just come to his senses about the futility of trying to keep the outdated and gender-biased language alive.

 

Inside the office Schuester is smiling and talking to Becky while he marks papers. Becky sits on the other side of the desk and while Sue can't see her face, she can tell Becky isn't very happy, mostly because of the nervous strain she can see in Will's eyes. Sue's hand is on the door, but she stops for a moment, just out of sight, to listen. It's not the first time she's secretly thanked her mother for training her and Jean how to hear through closed doors. Of course, Doris intended this skill to be used to ascertain if there was a Nazi on the other side, but now that Chad has been arrested, there's nothing to worry about. At least not until the covert op against Osama gets underway.

 

"—want you to know that you're a wonderful girl, Becky." Schue is saying, earnestly. "She's not going to make fun of you for not being brave enough to stay on the Cheerios, because that's not true. You  _are_ brave."

 

"That's not what Coach Schweitzer said," Becky protests. She sounds nervous. "He said that she would be angry because she said I was good enough to be a cheerleader and I was making her wrong. She  _hates_  being wrong."

 

"I know she does," Schue says, although Sue doesn't know how he knows that, because they have  _never_  gone head-to-head over something when she  _hasn't_  been right. Especially if they are fighting about the offensiveness of his hair.

 

"But I think you  _are_ good enough to be a cheerleader."

 

And case in point, thank you very much. Sue smirks a little as Will continues, remembering how horrified he'd been at the idea of Becky joining the squad last year.

 

"Sometimes people get wrapped up in the little things and they forget to see the big picture. I've heard the things Coach Schweitzer said about you, that you don't have the right look to be a Cheerio and that you can't keep up. But that's not true."

 

"He said that at least Brittany was stupid and  _pretty_ ," Becky says, sounding very small. "But I can't help it if I'm ugly."

 

"You are  _not_  ugly, Becky." Schue says firmly. "You're beautiful. You're just different, that's all. And you're not stupid, either.  _Schweitzer_  is stupid because he doesn't know that different is a  _good_  thing. Kurt is different, and his singing is what won you guys nationals."

 

"I don't think he likes Kurt, either," Becky says. "Sometimes he'd come to practise crying and coach would just yell at him."

 

Schuester clears his throat before he says,

 

"I don't think Coach Schweitzer liked anyone. But hey! Now that Coach Sylvester's back, maybe things will be fun again!"

 

Sue is proud of the incredulous edge in Becky's voice when the girl counters that lunacy with,

 

"Cheerios was never  _fun_ , Mr. Schue. It's not supposed to be  _fun_. It's supposed to be  _war_."

 

"Then...why did you stay if it wasn't fun?"

 

"I thought I was good at it," Becky sounds a little heartbroken, which sets Sue's teeth on edge. "I thought they needed me."

 

"They  _do_  need you," Schue says with passion. Nerdy, pathetic passion. "And if you're afraid Coach Sylvester won't remember that after she's talked to Schweitzer, then we'll have to  _make_  her remember."

 

That's it. Enough of  _this_  idiocy. Forget Schweitzer, Sue has to save Becky from  _Will's_  delusions first, she decides, as she swings the door open wide.

 

"I highly doubt there's a Disney song powerful enough to achieve the  _impossible_ , William," She says brightly, but keeping her eyes on Becky, who is refusing to look at her. "You don't have the power to  _make_  me do anything. Becky?"

 

Becky turns her head even further away, her entire body moving with it.

 

"Becky?" Sue tries again. "I need to tell you something. Are you listening?"

 

Becky doesn't answer, but Sue continues anyhow.

 

"When it comes down to me and Schuester here, everything I say is always right. You  _always_  believe meover him when we're saying different things. But sometimes..."

 

Sue breathes deeply, mentally prodding herself to continue.

 

"Sometimes we actually agree on things. And we are right now. Schweitzer is an idiot, not you. You are so much better than him. You were too  _good_  to be on his squad, and you did the right thing by leaving. Never settle for anything less than the best, that's what I taught you girls. I'm sad that you were the only one smart enough to remember. Get out of the room, Will."

 

Will startles, unprepared for her order, especially because Sue still hasn't looked at him.

 

"Excuse me?" He asks. "Sue, this is  _my office_. You can't just—"

 

"William?" Sue turns to face him and fix him with a stare that does not broker dissidence. "Out.  _Now._ "

 

Schuester sputters for a moment before rolling his eyes, petulant child that he is, and storming to the door.

 

"Wait outside, please." She tells him. "I need to talk to you in a minute."

 

"No problem, Sue," Will mutters as the door swings shut. "It's not like I have a  _job_  or papers to mark..."

 

Becky is finally looking at Sue again, now that they are alone. She looks like she is starting to be hopeful.

 

"Becky, I need to tell you a secret," She confesses. "Sometimes I make mistakes."

 

Becky's eyes widen, and Sue nods in sympathy. It's not a pleasant thing to hear.

 

"I know, I know. It doesn't seem possible, but highly evolved as I am, I still haven't managed to shake off the fact that I'm, unfortunately, still just a human. Sometimes I make bad choices. Or lose control of things that need to be kept controlled. You're the only person I've ever admitted that to. Except for my big sister."

 

"Your sister?" Becky asks, intrigued. Sue makes it a point never to talk to anyone about her family unless there is absolutely no other option. It isn't good strategy to let people know about your weak spots. Especially when there are so many people who want to see her destroyed, so it's only natural that Becky is curious.

 

"My big sister is a lot like you," Sue says. "Not exactly like you, obviously. Between you and me, her sense of rhythm is nowhere near as good as yours is, and you don't have that Sylvester charm that she does, but she's brave like you, and funny like you, and I respect both of you very much."

 

Sue pulls out her iPhone and shows Becky the screen, which is a picture of her and Jean smiling with their arms around each other. Becky's eyes get even wider, clearly surprised.

 

"She...she's like..."

 

"Yes, she is." Sue says, when Becky trails off and clearly isn't going to finish her sentence. "And the biggest mistake I ever made was when a boy at our school made fun of her and I let him because I thought he was cute and I wanted him to like me. My big sister is beautiful and perfect and I grew up wanting to be just as beautiful and perfect as her. And I didn't stand up for her because I was scared of not getting what I wanted."

 

Sue shakes her head, still feeling disgusted at the memory.

 

"It wasn't even worth it. When I got close enough to the boy he smelled like cheese puffs and my sister had been hurt. I did the only thing I could do, of course, and kneed him in the groin after explaining the importance of a healthy diet and good dental hygiene, but it was the lowest moment of my life."

 

Sue looks at Becky appraisingly and says,

 

"This could be the second lowest moment, though. I'm not feeling too proud of myself right now, Becky. I had a responsibility to keep my squad safe and in good hands, and everything probably would have been fine if I had been able to supervise, liked I'd always planned on doing if I ever had to have emergency surgery. But for once my body let me down and I was too sick to keep tabs on Schweitzer, or to find out why he wasn't reporting to me, even though it was clearly written into the contract."

 

"He said he told you everything," Becky is starting to look angry, which Sue thinks is a very good sign. "He  _lied_  to us! You always say not to do that unless you can get away with it, but he couldn't get away with it because you're back now to fix everything. He's a  _bad_ liar."

 

"Yes he is, Becky." Sue says triumphantly, feeling better than she has all day. "And we are going to make him pay. Now, I need you to call your mother and tell her you're back on the squad and have a practise to get to. Then you need to change into your uniform. We are going to assess the damage done to the troops and plan our counterattack!"

 

Becky is practically glowing as she skips out of the room, but as soon as she's gone and Sue is left standing next to a very impatient looking Will Schuester, her good mood evaporates as well. That  _tool_  of a choreographer let his sociopathic machinations for domination and control interfere with  _her_  sociopathic machinations for domination and control. Anyone should have been able to see that wouldn't end well, but obviously Schweitzer was crazier than she was, because he didn't care about who he hurt on the way to becoming the best, and anyone with any sense knows that you have to  _select_  who to crush to effectively seize power. Now all Sue was left with were casualties.

 

"You are getting your club back," Sue hisses. "No one ends my feuds for me. New Directions will die when  _I say_  it will die. Let your lovable crew of misfits know your rehearsals are back on. I'll reinstate a new rule for the Cheerios that will force former glee clubbers to go back or else they will face the prison stocks I built during my convalescence as punishment."

 

"Stocks? Wow, Sue. That's...wow." Schue is obviously struck dumb by her outpouring of generosity. Well, struck _dumber_. "But, as nice...ish as that is, I don't think it will help. We're still down a member. Puck's back in juvie and I don't think he's leaving any time soon."

 

"Minor detail." Sue says, dismissively. "He won't be in juvie by the time I'm through, and in the meantime I'll find someone else to fill in."

 

"Another substitute?" Schue asks, not a little derisively, and okay, maybe she deserves it a little.

 

"I've missed this, William," Sue says, smiling at him fondly.

 

"You've missed...what, exactly?"

 

Will leans away from her, seemingly disturbed by her expression.

 

"Hating you," Sue clarifies. "It's good to be back."


	3. Chapter 2

The thing that Sue likes and even admires the most about Brittany "Special Needs" Peirce is the thing that got her invited to the Cheerios freshman year before any of her peers had the honour extended to them, including Quinn Fabray. It's not, surprisingly, her ability to contort her body into inhuman shapes, or her other-worldly sense of rhythm, or even her casual attitude of "...I don't get it" towards the law of gravity. Brittany S. Peirce is fearless. Not courageous, because she isn't smart enough to be aware that being honest with the world about who you is a fear to be overcome.

 

Sue freely admits that she doesn't share this capacity for fearlessness, because she isn't clinically insane, no matter what Schuester says on the matter. Sue presents herself to the world in the same way Kurt Hummel does, and the same Rachel Berry  _wishes_  she does: as a person who has the right to be uncompromisingly herself and will fight tooth and nail for that right, even if it makes her an outsider. This unflinching determination makes others take notice and do what she says to avoid being crushed. It is what makes Sue a great leader, and what  _could_  make Kurt one someday, if he's lucky. Brittany will never be a leader, because her lack of awareness protects her from conflict.  Trying to fight with Brittany is like trying to sculpt water, and this makes her position on the team almost as invaluable as Becky.

 

Brittany could never work as Sue's spy, something Sue learned the hard way back in the early days of glee club when it became apparent that the daffy girl thought everyone paid as much attention to her as she did to them. Nor is it any use to go to Brittany in search of the cold hard facts, because for Brittany these facts include the following:

                - Walt Disney is Mickey Mouse ("Not the one at Disneyland, though. He's outlined, like in his movies.")

                - All colours are our friends, except for cyan ("It hurts too much to talk about, but it knows what it did and that's all I'm saying.")

                - Rachel is part hobbit ("I used to think she was just short but last year she wore sandals and real girls aren't allowed to have toes that hairy.")

 

Brittany is an asset to Sue because even though she's in a different library mentally, she tends to be on the same page as the other Cheerios emotionally, and unlike the other Cheerios, she is physically incapable of hiding how she feels.

 

This is why one of the best things that could have happened when Sue strolls into the gym at the start of practise is being viscously accosted by a squealing Brittany.

 

"You're back! You're back and you're  _real_! I thought I saw you today and I thought you were  _dead_  and, like, haunting me? And I told Quinn that I should tell you about Mr. Nobody, because ever since he came out of  that poetry book he has been  _nothing_  but trouble and since you were already dead like he is, you'd scare him away but –"

 

"Good God, Brittany," Sue interrupts as she tries to unlatch Brittany from her person, even as the cheerleader clings to her harder, like a socially obtuse limpet. "I don't  _ever_  want to hear so many words coming out of your mouth at one time again. It's like going on holiday at the institute for the criminally insane. 20 laps until you learn to be quiet."

 

Brittany smiles at her radiantly and takes off running to the far corner of the gym, bubbling with energy. Santana watches her go, looking absolutely miserable. There's a disconcerting look of longing in her eyes that she's doing an abysmal job of hiding, something that's always there when she looks at Brittany, but more pronounced now, like there's more of it. Sue rolls her eyes, slightly.

 

"Unless you want to join your girlfriend, I suggest you pay attention to what is important, Lopez," Sue warns. "And of course I mean the glorious return of your beloved commander."

 

"She's not my girlfriend," Santana mutters sullenly, and while it's not unusual for her to deny her latent lesbian tendencies, she usually gets angry when it happens. This Santana isn't fighting as much as she's reciting lines, and Sue's not quite sure what to make of it. Kurt doesn't seem surprised though, and reaches over to squeeze her hand as Quinn looks at her worriedly.

 

The moment is over almost as soon as it begins and Sue puts it out of her mind for the time being. This is especially easy because when Becky comes bouncing in after hurriedly changing into her uniform to join the others, the entire squad looks like they might be rallying.

 

"You're late, Becky," Sue announces, raising the bullhorn to her mouth to make the announcement, and feeling its power rush through her body as she does so.

 

"Sorry Coach!" Becky says cheerfully, knowing Sue well enough to take the weak reprimand as the welcome back that it is.

 

Sue smiles a little before starting to yell at the girls to get into formation. Things are starting to feel like they might not be so bad, after all. There's nothing like screaming at the troops to help get things in perspective. Sue doesn't even mind when the basket tosses are interrupted by Brittany shrieking with joy and tackling Becky with a big hug when she finally notices the girl's presence, somewhere during the 5th lap.

 

***  
 

Schweitzer was a hack. This is the conclusion Sue has reached by the time the first practise ends. He was a hack and he  _will_  be punished for his ineptitude. Sue is a fair person, so she makes a note to let her squad inflict some of the pain when the time comes. At this point she firmly believes it would only make them stronger as a unit, and possibly cut back on a few therapy bills besides.

 

It's not that they aren't performing well. On the contrary, they are exactly on schedule with where they ought to be in their routines, and even though they aren't as good as they would have been if Sue had never been away in the first place, that's not surprising. Sue is the only one who knows how to get Sue-Quality Performances, after all.

 

But Quinn hadn't been kidding when she said that Schweitzer never saw the team beyond how they were performing. There are some glaring problems with the Cheerios that obviously have been going unaddressed and unresolved for a very long time. She doesn't want to think about exactly how long that is. Their game faces are flawless, of course. If you were only watching them perform you'd never see the tiny fissures spidering out like broken glass from every corner of the team, and it's plainly obvious that Schweitzer did nothing to stop it happening.

 

Focusing on results is important, but equally important, if not more so, is making sure that the grunt workers responsible for the heavy lifting are kept happy and safe. Sue is positive this is the reason dictatorships don't work. If your peasantry is allowed feel like they have power over  _something_ , they can defend themselves  _and_ feel gratitude towards you, even if they know they are under your thumb. If they don't have that power things end messily for everyone. Sue isn't sure why she is the only person in history to have fully sorted this out. Paying attention is crucial.

 

Sue doesn't particularly care about the personal drama that comes with teenagers, so she would never fault anyone for not staying caught up on who is dating who, who is having a sexual identity crisis, or which Cheerio has trouble remembering her address (yes, yes, she  _knows_  it's Brittany). But you even when you ignore the soap opera, you have to know where the  _problems_  are, and if Schweitzer had worked a little harder at understanding this important distinction, there is no way he wouldn't have noticed Kurt's disappearing acts in the middle of practise, when he was supposed to be practising arias by himself while the athletes were perfecting their interpretive cheers of the trials by water and fire (Sue was determined to outclass the already legendary Celine Dion routine from last year, even though she had been responsible for that one, too). One minute he's there, shrieking away like the insanely talented diva she had conscripted him to be, and the next moment there's nothing but the terrifying threats of death by flood and burning being shouted to her in German.

 

This will not do at  _all_. Sue can't have one of her strongest weapons performing at half-efficiency because he's gone off to sob in the bathroom for whatever stupid reason. She doesn't stop the practise, but times the absence, noting that he's gone for almost half an hour before he comes back. She considers calling him to the carpet for his truancy, but then he notices her looking at him and the look on his face shocks her to remain silent. Save for the rather brilliant blush on his face he is sheet white and drawn. Sue can see perfectly how frail he looks, all sunken eyes and protruding cheekbones, with a Cheerios outfit that seems to hang off his body like it's a size too big. And Sue would be more than happy to never see that expression on his face ever again, because it is nothing short of agonizing to look at. He looks desperate and resigned and angry and mortified and devastated all at the same time. He knows that her noticing his sneaking off is the beginning of the end, Sue realizes. Whatever he's hiding he knows that Sue, of all people, will never respect his standard arm's-length attitude and requests for privacy.

 

He quickly turns his back to her and resumes practising so he can avoid her stare, walking further away from her, until he's retreated into the far corner of the gym. He's limping slightly and if it hadn't been for the look he'd given her, Sue would assume that he's been following in the footsteps of her more adventuresome (read: slutty, read: Santana) Cheerios and scoring in the locker room instead of working to further her dreams of fame and glory. Maybe with that prep school boy he's been mooning over lately (just because she avoids learning any names doesn't mean she can escape that ridiculous picture Kurt's plastered inside his locker).

 

That would be appalling in and of itself, because clearly Sue's success should come before the squad's happiness at all times, not to mention that sort of thing is grossly unsanitary, and coitus should  _never_ be performed by students anywhere on school grounds unless it happens to be in Pillsbury's office and she finds out about it (because some things are worth the sacrifice). But Sue thinks about how all the Cheerios flock around Kurt in the hallways now like worried hens, and how the faculty watch him with helpless expressions, and above all, the obvious misery the kid is wallowing in, and she knows it's not a happy secret he's hiding. What's more, everyone else knows it, too.

 

***

 

Sue goes up to Becky after practise, interrupting an animated conversation with Brittany. ("If you don't like your invisible friend it's okay to stop imagining him, Brittany. You won't hurt his feelings.")

 

"What's the deal with Porcelain?" She demands.

 

"David is really mean to him," Becky doesn't even hesitate. "It makes him sad and he isn't any fun now."

 

Sue almost asks when Kurt Hummel was  _ever_  fun before she dimly remembers one day when she saw him adorning a delighted Becky with a hideous scarf by his locker, gaying something about the colours bringing out the red in her uniform. And now Brittany is nodding in agreement as she sadly adds,

 

"He never wants to dance with me anymore. And he lies."

 

"Explain yourself."

 

Brittany shrugs,

 

"I told him he should show Figgins on a doll where Karofsky touches him and he got all shouty with me. He kept saying that nothing was happening over and over until he started crying and breathing funny and Santana had to take him home."

 

All three of them turn to look at Kurt make his way to the locker room, but only Sue raises an eyebrow when Santana walks up next to him and loops her arm through his, letting him lean on her slightly as they walk away. Sue is going to have to do something to help him, and fast. Still, she knows that until he confesses there's a problem to be taken care of, she is going to have to bide her time, so she puts off the inevitable confrontation with singer for now. It's not like she doesn't have other things to fix in the meantime. He's not the only cheerleader who's lost his spark.  
  
"When did he become so dependent on Lopez?" she wonders aloud.   
  
Brittany's eyes cloud up a little when she says,  
  
"When Santana stopped being my friend."  
  
"Did you impose another sex ban?" Sue guesses, because some teen drama is impossible not to know about no matter how much she wishes it could be. Brittany just shakes her head pitifully.  
  
"No! I didn't do anything!" She insists. "We don't even do that now that Artie told me it was kind of a big deal to sleep with other people when we're dating, even if it is a girl and it shouldn't count because there's no penis. That's, like, science right? But Coach Schweitzer didn't like how Santana was always saying he did things wrong and that he was only trying to stop us from singing with his stupid rules."  
  
"And that made you stop being friends?" Sue asks. "It must be hard being you Brittany, because I'm not following and it's a terribly exhausting feeling."  
  
Brittany wrinkles her nose slightly before asking,  
  
"What?"  
  
Sue's very finite reserves of patience are about to run out but Becky can sense this and helps move things along by commenting,  
  
"You're leaving things out. Coach doesn't like asking for the interesting parts."

 

"Oh," Brittany says. "Coach Schweitzer gave her a final warning to stop complaining and trying to get his rules changed. She told him to screw himself because he was flexible enough that it was an option, and nobody else would ever have him, and then she must have said something to Puck, because the next thing we knew he was arrested for breaking Schweitzer's windshield with a crowbar."

 

She pauses before adding, "I think she might have told Finn, too. I heard that he had helped, but Puck wouldn't tell on him to keep Finn out of juvie. He really doesn't like sharing waffles, and Finn eats, like,  _a lot_."

 

Sue motions with her hand for Brittany to get to the point and for what may be the only time in her life, Brittany understands.

 

"He got Santana in trouble, too." Her eyes get misty again. "And he was really mean about it. I know I'm dumb, but I'm _just_  stupid, you know?"

 

"No, I  _really_  don't," Sue says in exasperation.

 

"Becky is really smart," Brittany says with conviction. "That's why I sit next to her in math class, but she doesn't think properly, right? Like, she told me once that her brain knows some things, but there are things that it  _can't_ know because of how it's built. I'm just dumb, and there's nothing special about it, but Coach Schweitzer went to Santana's house and explained everything wrong. He told her parents he was worried about Santana being friends with me, because we have sex sometimes, too. They got so mad at her."

 

Sue is pretty sure she knows where this is going, and disgusting isn't a good enough word for it. For once though, she wants someone to prove her wrong, so she keeps asking questions.

 

"Her parents didn't know she had sex with girls?"

 

"No," Brittany hesitates. "But I don't think they were so angry about  _that_. They're pretty cool with gay stuff, but..."

 

Brittany looks around to make sure no one else can hear, lowering her voice so Becky and Sue have to lean in to hear.

 

"Santana has an aunt, and she's different. Not like Becky's different, but like, she hears voices and sees things that aren't there and stuff? Kind of like me, but she can't remember it's imaginary like I can, because it's stronger than she is. One time there was a guy who made her sleep with him even though she didn't really want to, because he convinced her it was what the voices wanted, or something like that? It was sort of confusing when Santana told me because she was so upset about it."

 

Brittany's voice returns to normal as she continues.

 

"The point is, he was supposed to look after her and make sure she wasn't burning down her apartment but he was hurting her instead, and Coach Schweitzer must have found out somehow, even though I'm the only person Santana's _ever_  told, because he knew just what to say to get her in trouble. He even brought some papers about the things he said was wrong with me as proof. Mr. and Mrs. Lopez told her we couldn't be friends anymore and if they heard about it, they would report her. They said it's because they made a promise never to let anything like that happen again if they could stop it, even if it meant turning in their own daughter."

 

"That's a whole new level of inexcusable duplicity on that idiot substitute's part," Sue concedes. "But at least it's a problem I can solve easily. I'll go home with her and speak to her parents tonight. There's no point in forcing her to be treated like a sex offender in her own home."

 

"It's not her home anymore, Coach," Becky says.

 

"They said they weren't her parents anymore," Brittany says, tears finally falling as her lower lip wobbles. "Santana wouldn't say I can't decide for myself because she knows that's not true, but her parents said that if she was too selfish to admit that she'd been doing something wrong, they didn't want her. She lives with Kurt and Finn now. Their parents were going to say no, but I asked them to please say yes because it isn't true, and they believed me."

 

"Do  _your_  parents know about this?" Sue asks, surprised that they haven't done anything.

 

Brittany nods,

 

"The Lopezes won't listen to them when they talk about it, though. Mom and Dad know I'm not crazy, I'm a free spirit, but Santana's parents won't listen to anyone until I get tested and interviewed about what happened, not even to Mr. Schuester. They think I've been coached by Santana and everyone else is in denial about what's wrong with me."

 

"Oh hell," Sue mutters. "This is going to be harder than I thought. I'd been hoping to avoid the inevitable testing of your psyche until senior year. You're obviously happy enough, and it's not like you're eating puppies, why can't that be enough for everyone?"

 

Becky's and Brittany's matching blank stares are starting to grate on her, so she stalks out the side exit and heads to her car, quite frankly too overwhelmed to stay in the school for a second longer than necessary. She's so distracted that if it wasn't for her finely honed observational skills, instilled in her thanks to her own mother and father, she might have missed the strange car in the parking lot, made even stranger by the occupants inside, who are watching the cheerleaders leave practise with an off-putting intensity.

 

Sue pauses for a moment to watch the watchers, and it occurs to her that maybe she should assign fellow students as well as teachers to look after her Cheerios as she attempts to untangle the mess that has been left to her. Putting soldiers on the front lines would be a good move strategically, after all, and she just happens to have a car full of gay prep and diva sass that probably won't be too hard to win over to her methods.

 

***

 

"You want me to  _what_?"

 

Blaine Sue Doesn't Care To Learn His Last Name certainly has beautiful eyes, Sue allows. Unfortunately, he seems very determined to force people to notice this as he constantly preens and strikes poses that deliberately call attention to them – narrowing them, raising eyebrows, and widening them to near comical levels. She's getting the last one thrown at her right now as she sits opposite to him and Mercedes in a nearby Starbucks, and she's getting tired of it.

 

"Don't think I won't force you to wear eye patches like a comically accident-prone pirate while we're talking if you don't stop trying to weaken my will power with your woe-is-me cat eyes, kid. I won't tell you again."

 

It still doesn't work, as Blaine's eyes become perfectly schooled studies of confusion, accompanied by a furrowed brow and a slightly pouty frown. It's a little sad to think that he's spent such a long time practising those faces in front of a mirror that he can't even tell when he's making them now, but in the end Sue decides now isn't the time to help Kurt's would-be boyfriend through his vanity issues. They have better things to worry about.

 

"Never mind, we'll work on it later. For now I want both of you reporting to my office after school tomorrow to tell me how the plan is going."

 

"Coach Sylvester, we can't do that." Mercedes is shaking her head reluctantly. Why is everyone opposing Sue's will today? Don't they know that's how wars start? "Mr. Schue texted the Glee club today while we were waiting for Kurt to get out of practise. He said that we have a temporary replacement for Puck and New Directions is going to have its first meeting after school."

 

"And I want to make sure Kurt is okay," Blaine says. "I do. But I can't transfer schools overnight from an expensive private school to watch someone I care about avoid me all day. My parents would  _kill_  me."

 

"I don't know what you're talking about," Sue says, dismissively. "You will not be transferring to 'make sure Kurt is okay'. You will be transferring to serve as a place holder who just happens to have an identical schedule to Kurt Hummel. Won't that be nice? You'll already know someone in all of your classes! Look, if you have to go to your little sing-a-long, I guess we'll have to work around it. Skip lunch and let me know how the morning has gone."

 

"I don't understand," Blaine protested. "A place holder? What am I a place holder for?"

 

Sue shakes her head at him sadly while a look of realization begins to dawn on Mercedes' face, part disbelief, part hopeful excitement.

 

"Kurt really seems to go for the dumb ones," Sue says sadly, because the kid could do better.

 

"I'm not  _dumb_ ," Blaine protests as Mercedes starts pulling on his sleeve excitedly. "Wait – Kurt likes me? Wait – Kurt likes  _other_  dumb guys? I'm not dumb. Does Kurt like me?"

 

"Blaine, " Mercedes interrupts, thankfully ending the lust driven angst spiral. "Blaine, I think  _you're_  the temporary replacement for Puck."

 

" _What_?!" Blaine almost shouts. "You want me to join  _the competition_? Now  _Wes_ is going to kill me."

 

Sue's had enough of this, so she decides to cut to the chase.

 

"Look kid, I know that this isn't easy for you, but you have a choice to make. I'm worried about Kurt and I need to make sure he's going to be okay. I can't get that idiot jock out of the school until Kurt tells me what's going on and lets me report it, and there is no way that is going to happen until he starts to feel safe again. Glee club makes him feel safe. Mercedes makes him feel safe.  _You_ make him feel safe. He obviously won't talk to Mercedes until he has to, and Figgins won't start up glee when it's one member down. I need you to be a part of the team until the team can function on its own for this to work."

 

Blaine slumps forward over his coffee. He doesn't look like he's practised the look on his face right now as he says softly,

 

"What if we're wrong? Maybe...maybe he's just decided he likes Karofsky and  this is what he wants? Maybe he's happy now."

 

Mercedes clucks at him a little as she rubs his shoulder in sympathy as Sue says,

 

"Are you saying that's what you think is happening? Or is  that just what you want to be happening?"

 

"He's  _not_  happy," Mercedes asserts, even though everyone at the table already knows. "Happy people don't do what he does. Kurt used to tell me  _everything_. Now he doesn't even look me in the eye. He's so scared he doesn't even know how to let us help him. You know the only reason he started to go after me with slushies is because I told him one day that I wouldn't leave him alone until told me what was going on? He turned and walked away and the next day I was washing corn syrup out of my hair in the washroom."

 

Blaine looks lost as he says,

 

"I  _really_  like Kurt. I was even going to ask if... but I'd rather just be his friend while he's with someone else than see him hurting like this."

 

Sue smiles at him, in spite of herself.

 

"You're a good kid, Blaine. You might be stupid, but my cheerleaders have good taste. I'm glad. I'd hate to think that I wasted a perfectly good favour when I texted the school board on the drive over and had them transfer you."

 

"You  _what_?!" Blaine's eyes go back to cartoonishly oversized. Mercedes looks at Sue in tentative disapproval before saying,

 

"You shouldn't text and drive at the same time. That's dangerous."

 

Sue waves her off.

 

"I used to be a trucker. I know what I'm doing."


	4. Chapter 3

Sue spends the next day in a host of meetings, so she doesn't get to see Kurt's reaction to Blaine walking into his first period English class the next morning. She hears about it being talked about in the hallways afterwards, though. When you throw up in the waste basket next to your teacher's desk, people will talk about you. That's the way high school works.

 

First she calls the Pierces and Brittany in for a conference with Pillsbury. Mr. and Mrs. Pierce have matching looks of stubborn obstinacy on their faces and Sue can't really fault them for it. It can't be easy hearing someone tell you your kid is too spaced out to realize she's being molested by a legitimate romantic interest.

 

"Let me guess," Mrs. Pierce says flatly. "You're worried that my daughter's new boyfriend is forcing her to roll him into the bedroom and manoeuvre him onto the mattress so he can accost her."

 

Pillsbury makes an undignified little squeak of embarrassment and horror next to Sue, and Sue rolls her eyes, glad she thought to make Evita sit in a significantly smaller chair, lest anyone mistakenly think they were equals because they were both sitting on the same side of the desk.

 

"Not all of us are as easily manipulated as the Lopezes apparently are," Sue snaps, levelling an angry glare at Brittany's mother. "My Cheerios are a lot of things, Pierce. They are superficial, they are cutthroat, they are easier lays than legless iguana, but they are  _not_  sexual predators."

 

"Why is an iguana with no legs easy to have sex with?" Brittany asks, whispering to her father. Mr. Pierce just shushes her with a motion of his hand and looks from Sue to Irma with interest.

 

"So...if you're not calling this meeting to talk us into getting our daughter tested for something she doesn't have, what is this about?" He asks.

 

Sue is all but buried in a sea of pamphlets artfully (and possibly alphabetically) strewn about her desk before she can blink, but before Pillsbury can start talking and ruin Sue's carefully orchestrated plan, Sue sweeps her arm across the desk and dumps the entire mess onto the floor. She's still chuckling a little despite herself at Erica's gasp of horror and frantic scrambling to put everything back in order when she answers,

 

"I called you here to talk you into getting your daughter tested for something she  _does_ have."

 

Both the Pierces bristle at that and Mr. Pierce says,

 

"We just told you there is nothing wrong with her. Brittany is not the smartest girl at this school, we know that. But she's not mentally handicapped, and she's not mentally ill. She is just  _different_. I don't understand why everyone is too afraid to accept that."

 

He sighs and angrily jostles his glasses out of the way as he rubs at his eyes.

 

"I really wish we had just sent her to that dance school when they offered her the scholarship instead of going the public route. Days like these I don't know why we didn't."

 

Brittany helpfully speaks up here to say,

 

"We didn't do it because I didn't want to live in New York by myself, Daddy. And I didn't want to leave Santana."

 

She turns to her Sue and Elma, who has since recovered her pamphlets and is sitting in her chair again. "It was my first year of middle school, and Santana and I had the same homeroom. I was crying because it was in class 107 and 7s can bite you if you're not paying close enough attention, but Santana told me that it was okay because if the 7 tried anything she would kick its ass. I  _couldn't_  go to a school that didn't have a Santana."

 

Sue says nothing for a long moment, and then looks at Brittany's parents.

 

"Did you catch that?" She asks. "Do you think crying over anthropomorphised numerals is normal behaviour for a middle school child?"

 

"She has an active imagination," Mrs. Pierce protests. "There is nothing wrong with that."

 

"Brittany," Sue asks, abruptly. "Explain what penguins are."

 

"Midgets in bird costumes."

 

"And how do you spell your last name?"

 

"P-E-A-R-S-E. Otherwise it's like what Rusty our cat throws up after he's been mouse hunting."

 

"I see. Would you care to explain why Mr. Schuester finally had to transfer you out of Spanish class and into French?"

 

"The words in Spanish are too hot. Every time I say one, I have to go the bathroom, like when someone puts your hand in warm water during a sleepover? He got tired of writing passes for me."

 

Sue looks at the Pierces incredulously.

 

"How can you honestly think she is just  _different_? Being different in high school is dressing like that absurd boyfriend of hers, not hallucinating about the temperature of foreign languages."

 

"There is still no reason –" Mrs. Pierce angrily begins, but stops when Ingmar raises her hand, timidly.

 

"I have one," she says. Brittany brightens.

 

"Is it the time I told you about the music shouting if I didn't do what it told me?" She asks. Pillsbury nods quickly, relieved that she doesn't have to actually say it out loud.

 

"The point we're trying to make is that your daughter is more  than just different. And for what it's worth, I don't think she's stupid either."

 

"You don't?" Mr. Pierce asks.

 

"Stupid girls can't learn whole pages worth of choreography in half an hour. Especially  _my_  choreography."

 

Brittany smiles brilliantly. Sue has made it a point never to compliment her girls when they can hear her, so this is a first for the blonde sitting in front of her.

 

"And I don't think your daughter is crazy, but I certainly don't think that's a good enough reason to ignore that she acts _exactly like a crazy person_. I also think getting your daughter tested is the only safe way for Santana to be her friend again without being terrified of getting dragged into foster care or transferred to a different school division. I know you don't want your daughter to lose her best friend over someone's misguided opinions on what might constitute capacity for consent, because that just means the ignorance of others has won. Besides all that, I'm a firm believer in the power of a good label. People like putting a name to your little quirks, because it tricks them into believing that they're better equipped to deal with you. So your kid is strange and the system doesn't know how to effectively educate her! So what? So  _slap_  that kid into the nicest and nearest box you can find and let the school system get on with teaching her how to long divide, now that they have a politically correct name they can call her in the teacher's lounge!"

 

Sue takes the long silence filled with incredulous stares and slow blinks as assent enough to her ridiculously brilliant plan, so she stands up and starts making part-flailing, part-shooing gestures towards the door, saying,

 

"Good! Wonderful! I'm glad we're all in agreement here. I've called ...Bush Baby in to discuss setting up appointment times with some of her contacts so we can get this entire unpleasantness behind us as soon as possible. Now, get out. Get! We're burning daylight here, people! I've got an entire school to save and I don't need your dumb ox-like expressions weighing me down.  _God_ I'm good. I never should have given that  _hack_  Figgins his old job back. I'm too soft, that's my problem."

 

Once the door has closed, Sue rubs her hands together and looks at the clock. Things are progressing nicely now. And she's right on time for her second meeting.

 

***  
 

Coach Beiste makes Sue nervous. There is just no getting around it. Sue likes it when her competitors stay predictable and playable. She knows how to control her co-workers and prey on their insecurities on a person-by-person basis, because she thinks a human touch is important. Sue would never insult Pillsbury's hair to get her off-balance, just like she would never intimidate Schuester by planting fake rat droppings in his office. She is confident she knows the inner workings of every co-worker's psyche  _except_ for Beiste.

 

Maybe it's the torturously mixed metaphors that are tripping her up, but Sue simply  _cannot_  get a read on the new football coach. She's sure the lady is somewhat insecure about her body, and that she's had her share of negative experiences with bullying that go back to her own school days, but Sue has no idea how to utilize this knowledge to her advantage. Every time she's levied an attack at the woman, the response has been unmappable. Sue can publicly humiliate her by calling her Sherman in front of the entire football team and walk away thoroughly trounced in the resulting battle of wits, and two days later she can insult her teaching attire without thinking and Beiste will be flustered enough to threaten leaving. A small part of Sue is beginning to wonder if Beiste is doing this on purpose, because she knows nothing upsets Sue more than a person who cannot be played like a fiddle.

 

In spite of this, Sue is pleased to have Beiste come storming into her meeting, unpredictable as always, and growl out,

 

"What are we going to do about Hummel?"

 

It's nice to know there's another person at McKinley who doesn't believe in beating around the bush. Even if she  _is_  a loose cannon.

 

"By 'we' I assume you mean 'I,'" she says. Sue wants to be very clear on that point. "I can't say that I've seen any evidence of any of  _you_  doing anything."

 

Beiste glowers at her.

 

"It's not for lack of trying, let me tell you." She says. "That kid does  _not_  let people help him and it's going to get him killed one day. I talk to him at least once a day, and try to get him to tell me what is going on, and I get nothing. He's tighter lipped than an early bird choking on Double Mint."

 

Sue is momentarily lost as she tries to sort that one out before finally giving up and accusing,

 

"You don't even coach Kurt in anything! Why are  _you_ the one who is so invested in this?"

 

"It's not  _just_  me," Beiste says. "I know for a fact that Schuester and Emma have both been trying to get him to talk to them as well. Will told Kurt he was considering calling in his dad for a meeting and the poor kid almost had a break down. He just sat in a chair and cried his eyes out, begging anyone who'd listen not to say anything to his father, that he just wanted to handle everything on his own. As for why I'm so worked up about it?"

 

Beiste shakes her head in disgust.

 

"I don't know how long it took the  _kids_  to figure out what was going on, but I was the first teacher  to make the connection to Karofsky. Walked into the locker room one day when Kurt was supposed  to be practising with the other Cheerios and saw him backed into a corner, trying to get Karofsky's hand out of his pants. Not that it was doing much good. Poor kid's arm was being twisted so far behind his back I thought something was going to snap. He was almost completely immobilised."

 

"I'm sorry," Sue interrupts, her ears ringing like she's just been slapped. "You caught one kid  _in the act_  of molesting another student and Figgins  _still_  didn't expel him? It still counts if his penis hasn't had a chance to catch up with his hand, you know."

 

Beiste shrugs, looking as unimpressed as Sue feels.

 

"Karofsky told Figgins he was giving Kurt some kind of wedgie and got a detention."

 

Sue snorts.

 

"Figgins is just stupid enough to believe that."

 

"He believes it when one of the only McKinley athletes up for a scholarship is the one telling him," Beiste amends, and Sue adds perceptiveness to her very short list of things she likes about Shannon Beiste. "Will almost quit on the spot after that meeting, but I think Emma convinced him to stay for the kids' sake."

 

"Will and Emma were there for the meeting?"

 

"They thought it was important because of Emma's position, and I know Will never stopped looking out for his glee club, even when they were disbanded."

 

"What did Schweitzer say about all of this?" Sue asks, suddenly curious. "This all happened on his watch, so I assume he said something that convinced our malleably-minded principal that this wasn't anything important."

 

"In a way," Beiste says. "He never came to the meeting. He called down to the office and told Figgins he was preparing a progress report for you, and was too busy to talk about somebody's feelings getting hurt over a harmless prank."

 

That is  _it_. Sue is searching this school for a makeshift opium den after classes today, because for a man who spent all of his free time writing progress reports, she sure as hell didn't get any of them. Maybe the papers fell into his bong water.

 

"Okay, whatever," she says, tiredly. "This is debatably interesting, but it's not especially  _helpful_. Am I to understand is that no one at this school, with the possible exception of an equally non-communicative classmate, is able to get Kurt to admit anything or file a report with Figgins or the police?"

 

Beiste nods.

 

"Okay. Fair enough. We need to try something else then." Sue squares her shoulders. "Nothing we say from here on out leaves this room. Do you understand?"

 

Another nod, and Beiste sits up a little straighter in her chair, as a slight frown crosses her face.

 

"How you far are you willing to go to protect this kid?"

 

"As far as I have to," Beiste says.

 

"Good," says Sue. "Karofsky's a bench-warmer for the football team, right?"

 

"He's third-string fullback, why?"

 

"You're playing Adams High next week. Their coach is extremely sensitive about rape, has been ever since his oldest daughter tried to kill herself after a very unfortunate incident on a date 15 years ago. He will routinely kick students off his team if he catches them so much as making a poorly thought out joke in the locker room. I'm calling him as soon as we're done here. Substitute Karofsky for Azimio in your starting line up, but make sure he's ready to play. He won't be out of the game for very long. One of the Adams plays is going to put that creepy son of a bitch in traction, out of a hockey scholarship, and out of McKinley for the rest of the year. Are you okay with purposely hurting a student and destroying his future, Shannon?"

 

"No," Beiste says without any hesitation. "I'm really not. But I'll do it. I can't let things keep happening the way they are now, and Kurt's too scared to act with Karofsky here. I don't want to say it, but I think he's being threatened with something even worse than what's already happening to make him stay quiet. If I don't get over my ethical hang ups about sending Karofsky out of here on a stretcher, Kurt might go out in a body bag and I will  _never_  be able to forgive myself if that happens when I could have done something about it."

 

And now Sue has three points in the "Like" column.  
 

***  
 

The rest of Sue's morning is taken up not with meetings, but with laying the groundwork for unplanned meetings she will be making in the afternoon. It would be easier if she were to just arrange for everything to take place in her office, but Sue is a firm believer in the fact that easier is rarely ever better. She wants to make a scene, and to catch people off guard. Quite frankly, she wants to scare them a little bit, and the visits Sue will be making will be much more effective if she is able to dramatically storm into houses unannounced and demand answers.

 

This is not something that can just happen. Spontaneity usually has to be planned in order for it to go off without a hitch, and Sue has found that so long as something  _feels_  spontaneous and unexpected to the person you need to surprise, you get much better results. So plans must be put into place. There are emails to forge, medical emergencies to fake, and basements to be mysteriously flooded via some inconveniently burst pipes. And it all has to be timed perfectly so Sue is able to seize the spotlight when everyone who she needs to talk to is in the room,  the conversation is lulling, and everyone has let their guard down.

 

The work is tedious and if Sue were a weaker person she would be tempted to just give up. But Sue is not weak and she sees it through to the end. She is finishing her last phone call – leaving detailed instructions with a mechanic to not worry Mr. Hummel, but just let him know the strange cat noises underneath his step have been growing more frantic and laboured, and that the blood leaking out from the gap has a least slowed down a little, so it's probably nothing to worry about. One of the highly emotional teenagers living in his house can just clean it up when they get home – when the door to her office opens and Mercedes walks in, dragging a reluctant looking Blaine behind her. Sue wrinkles her nose at the pair in horror.

 

"What in  _God's_  name do you have on your body?!" She demands, recoiling slightly despite her best efforts to appear unshakable.

 

"Yeah, that's what  _I_  asked him," Mercedes says, rolling her eyes.

 

"That's what everyone asked me," Blaine admits, forlornly, plucking at his baggy jeans and utterly mismatched Christmas sweater with a knit reindeer on the front of it. "Even Rachel and that kid in the wheelchair."

 

"And they were right to ask you," Mercedes snips at him, shaking her head. "Boy, you are dressed so badly that McKinley High's fashion  _jokes_  can tell how ridiculous you look. You're  _rich_. How come your taste hasn't caught up with your wallet?"

 

"It's not my fault," Blaine almost whines. "It's just…I wasn't…I had to pack  _all_  my clothes in  _one_  evening, okay? I haven't even had a chance to do laundry! And I don't really think about what I wear that much. And…and…I miss my uniform."

 

"Stand behind Jones, new kid," Sue commands sternly. "I can't look at that anymore."

 

"At least it woke Kurt up a little," Mercedes grins, as Blaine shuffles to obey Sue – thankfully the kid is short enough that it almost works in completely blocking him, with only a hint of horrific kelly green visible now. "He even started talking to me again! Once he got over his shock long enough to see what Blaine was wearing he texted me and set up an intervention for after Glee tonight. Said he couldn't believe Blaine could keep something so awful a secret from his friends for so long."

 

"Well that's deliciously ironic," Sue says, and the mood suddenly gets a little heavier. "How's it going today? Have you been sticking close to him, new kid?"

 

"Well, he doesn't really want to be seen with me in the halls until we go shopping," Blaine admits. "And I think he was pretty angry and scared to see me here, because he doesn't really hide things from me too well, and up until this morning he wouldn't even talk to me beyond one word text messages, but I think it's better. He wouldn't look at me most of the time, but he didn't make me leave him alone either, and I think he's glad there's  _always_  someone with him now. Karofsky is at least smart enough to leave Kurt be unless he's alone."

 

"Where is he now?" Sue asks.

 

"Eating with Finn and Santana," Mercedes says. "They're both really careful about staying with him whenever their schedules let them, even though I don't think Finn gets what's going on as much as Santana does. He's still worried about his brother, though, and I think he's really glad Santana is there so he can follow her lead. Kurt snaps a lot when he's upset, so Finn doesn't try to get him to talk much. For such a big guy, he sure is terrified of skinny little divas yelling at him."

 

"Finn hasn't mentioned anything to his parents?" Sue asks. She might as well know now how much will need to be explained to parental units this afternoon.

 

"Finn doesn't know enough of what's going on to mention it," Blaine says. "I called him about a month and a half ago when Kurt stopped talking to me, before I decided it would be easier to find out what was happening from Mercedes instead. He was freaking out because he went from being the only kid to having a new brother  _and_  a sister, and both of them in trouble they won't talk about. He knows that what's happening to Kurt is more than just bullying, and he knows what people here are saying, but Kurt told him it was just talk and Finn believes him."

 

"He's actually  _that stupid_?" Sue is incredulous, but Mercedes shakes her head and says,

 

"I don't think he is, but I  think he knows Kurt really wants him to be, so he's going along with it. He's really set on being the perfect brother right now, even if I keep telling him that helping Kurt doesn't mean pretending nothing's wrong."

 

"Well, if Finn wants to let his family bury their heads in the sand, that is his prerogative, but it won't be mine." Sue says, decisively. "I have no trouble playing the bad guy, and since no one else is willing to break this silence, I will. I am speaking to both of their parents this afternoon, and I will be telling them  _everything_."

 

Mercedes gapes slightly.

 

"But, Coach Sylvester, that won't work," She says. "We've  _tried_  to go to people before now about the sick shit going on with Karofsky, a lot of us have. Kurt just denies everything. He says none of it is true and gets upset that we believe rumours over him."

 

"You're a delightful person to listen to, Aretha," Sue says, interrupting the flow of excuses. "But once you stop singing, you lack my charisma and powers of persuasion. I  _will_  put an end to this once and for all. Hell, I once convinced Paul McCartney to briefly reunite with Michael Jackson so they could perform Happy Birthday for my sister's surprise party. I hardly think it will be difficult to convince your little friend's father about what is going on, especially when you and Kurt will be off perfecting your Stacy and Clinton impressions, conveniently preventing him from distracting us with carefully constructed deflection."

 

"Who are Stacy and Clinton?" Blaine asks. Mercedes scoffs,

 

"White boy, I'm know that  _you_  don't know who they are." She turns to look at her teacher, and clearly it  _is_  a surprise to know that  _she_  does. Perhaps Sue has said too much. She stands abruptly.

 

"I have to go now. I have a very tight schedule and if I'm off by even one minute, I'll have to count this afternoon as a loss. Go and eat with your friends, you two. And new boy? Maybe you should consider wearing a garbage bag over that until Kurt gets you to a mall."


	5. Chapter 4

The words can plainly be heard from outside the house. Dr. Lopez is frantically asking his wife if she can find it and put it on ice until they get to a hospital and why on earth did she call her mother instead of an ambulance, and Mrs. Lopez is talking over him, demanding to know who died and made him king of the world and did he  _really_  think she wouldn't find out about selling her grandmother's antique tea set that he'd always secretly hated just because she was at work? Sue smiles in satisfaction before pushing open the door. Discord and chaos that she is the cause of has always calmed her soul when she feels uneasy, and this is some of her finest work yet. She'd give up coaching if she could ever discover a viable way to do this full time.

 

"Good afternoon!" She chirps out as she walks in and both Lopezes whip around to stare at her. "I hope we're all doing well. All appendages and trinkets in place and accounted for? Excellent. And do you know where your children are? No? Well, I suppose two out of three isn't bad."

 

"Coach Sylvester," Mrs. Lopez says, trying to sound gracious and failing miserably. "You're back. It's...good to see you're feeling better."

 

She hesitates briefly, obviously suspicious at Sue's timing but not wanting to risk just saying it.

 

"I, uh, I don't want to sound like I'm accusing you of anything, but you aren't responsible for some...suspicious correspondence we received earlier in the day, are you?"

 

"Don't know what you're talking about, Connie," Sue says, dismissively.

 

"My name's not Connie," Mrs. Lopez looks extremely frustrated now, and Dr. Lopez is close to joining her. Good.

 

"I just wanted to have a chat about a few things," Sue says, helping herself to a seat on the couch when it becomes obvious that these people have no concept of basic manners. "I like to stay caught up with my girls, you know. I'm always popping over to one of their homes to have a talk with parents and offer my support and excellent advise on child-rearing."

 

"You've never come over before," Dr. Lopez says.

 

"Well, never when any of you are  _awake_ ," Sue says. "But as much as I would like to go back to never speaking to you or acknowledging your existence as I pick your lock in the dead of night to go through your cupboard, ensuring my legacy isn't being tarnished by trans fats, it appears that I no longer have that as an option."

 

"This is about Santana," Mrs. Lopez says flatly. "Look, Coach Sylvester, I'm not sure what exactly Santana has been saying to you, but –"

 

"Santana hasn't said a word to me," Sue cuts her off. "Santana doesn't say a word to anyone anymore, from what I can see. Now, I don't know exactly if that's because she's scared, given up, or just too damn angry at the world to trust herself to open her mouth for fear of what will come out, but I  _do_  know that it's your fault."

 

"You don't understand the whole story," Dr. Lopez protests, getting predictably and insultingly defensive. "I'm sure Coach Schweitzer has filled you in on the basics, though. Surely you agree that there have to be consequences to actions this serious. Santana understands why what she did was wrong. She should have known better."

 

"No,  _you_  should have known better," Sue snaps, letting her disgust at these people become even more transparent. "Your problem with your daughter has nothing to do the situation with Brittany. I've heard all about your ridiculous little mentally ill sob story. I didn't realize that one negative experience is all that's needed to give your paranoia and ignorance free reign. Frankly I would have expected better from a doctor."

 

"My sister  _never_  got over what happened to her," Mrs. Lopez says, her voice rising. "She was a sick, scared woman who was so alone and confused she tried to kill herself to escape. Santana  _loved_  her aunt and was  _devastated_  by what happened. We sat her down and explained to her as best we knew how why something like this was so terrible, and we trusted that she wouldn't forget. When that man came to our house and told us those things, I realized that I never knew my little girl at all. If she were from a different family I could get past it, but Santana has experienced the fallout from this sort of sexual coercion first hand. This should never have happened."

 

"No, what never should have happened is you going through this horrible thing in your own family only to walk away from it with half-formed ideas and uneducated opinions on something that you  _should_  have dedicated  _years_  to trying to understand." Sue says, jabbing her finger at both Lopezes occasionally to emphasize her point. "The mentally ill have all the same equipment as we do, and only an  _idiot_  would think every mental illness is created equal. If they want to have consensual sex, that is none of your business, even if the person they decide to sleep with is your daughter."

 

"You have no right to tell us what we do and don't know about mental illness," Dr. Lopez says. "My wife has lived with it."  
 

"No, she's lived with one form of it," Sue says. "You are by no means experts. If you were, you likely would have caught on to the fact that mental illness is something that is identified by rigorous testing and research, if at all, and that the suspect interference of one  _substitute gym teacher_  is  _not_  a viable authority on a subject that takes years of intense schooling to even begin to understand. It's appalling that someone in the medical profession would be so afraid of his partner that he lets her hysteria overpower his common sense."

 

"Are you saying that we should listen to you because you are the more qualified authority as the  _permanent_  gym teacher?" Mrs. Lopez quirks an eyebrow, and Sue catches a glimpse of Santana's scathing personality.

 

"I'm saying you should listen to my authority because I am  _Sue Sylvester_. I am a recognised TV personality and a top 700 recording artist. I am an expert on whatever I decide to be an expert on. I know my Cheerios better than their own parents and  _I_  say Brittany Peirce is not suffering from any form of mental illness other than debilitating blondeness and even if she were, she would still be capable of deciding who she wants to sleep with. This is thanks in large part to the advice she receives from  _your_  daughter, by the way, who cares more about her friend's safety and rights in the crazy world of pubescent sexual exploration than her own."

 

Sue narrows her eyes at the pair of them as they fidget nervously in front of her.

 

"The next time I come back here, I will be bringing  _real_  proof about the state of Brittany's mental health, and I would appreciate it greatly if you would keep your noses out of the business of others."

 

"Santana's behaviour  _is_ our business," Dr. Lopez is almost snarling at her. "If she is victimizing someone it is our responsibility as her parents to stop it."

 

Sue smiles at him, softly saying,

 

"Dr. Lopez, you've thrown her out of your house on hearsay and are threatening to ruin her entire future because of the same. Your irrational fears have alienated her from her best friend and turned her into a completely different person, who I don't much care for, to be honest. I don't know what you are to Santana at this point, but you certainly aren't her parents. And once we've sorted out this little hiccup with Brittany? I sincerely hope she moves on to find better ones."  
 

***

 

In its own way, giving the Lopez parents a piece of her mind had been a fun and enjoyable experience. Sue got herself worked up for a righteous cause (perhaps even a little more righteous than most of her causes), and was able to unleash her fury without having to worry about cleaning up the trail of destruction left in her wake. It was much easier than what she's doing right now in the Hudson-Hummel living room, because as much as she would like to think so, Sue knows the massive failure in Kurt's familial support network wasn't so much a case of bad parenting as it was a case of overwhelmed parenting. Which is the Lopez's fault too, now that she thinks of it. Maybe she should go back and yell at them some more after this.

 

"I don't understand – you're concerned with how Kurt is dealing with Santana?" Carole Hudson is saying, and Sue isn't entirely sure why these two got married in the first place if Finn's mother wasn't going to bother getting a new name out of it. She's seen the pictures and regardless of what Kurt might have thought, that dress certainly wasn't worth the work. Not like  _her_  glorious track gown, which has actually managed to make it into style blogs that still reference it and applaud its greatness.   Sue isn't certain what "fugly" means, but she's knows it must be flattering in the extreme. Just like her dress.

 

"Quite frankly, I could care less about how Porcelain is dealing with Santana's problems," Sue says. "He has bigger things to worry about, and I think it's time that his parents remembered that up until very recently, this family was caught up in a gay soap opera and not a lesbian one."

 

"... _What_?" Mr. Hummel sounds peevish, to say the least, but that's probably because Sue's timing was slightly off and he had managed to dismantle the entire back step before she arrived to distract him from fabricated dead animals.

 

"I'm talking about what that Karofsky kid has been doing to your son while I've been away ill," Sue says, and Burt's hands clench into fists.

 

"Look," He says, angrily. "You're not going to tell me anything I don't already know. I know that little shit is still harassing my son. If Kurt would just give me the word, I'd pull him out of that place so fast it would make your head spin, but when we asked him about going to Dalton Academy, he told us he wanted to try to stick it out at McKinley a little longer. He made me all but promise not to pull him without his say-so, because he didn't want us to be set so far back financially over something that, in his words, 'isn't anything he can't handle.' I don't believe him, but from the little I've gotten from Santana about it, the Cheerios have given him a certain amount of protection from the bullying, so I'm honouring his request. I've learned with Kurt that until we reach the maximum crisis point it's better to let him fight his own battles. He's a proud kid. I don't want to take that from him."

 

"That's a nice idea," Sue says. "Except your son is a proud kid, and a strong and stubborn one. You've done more than reach your maximum crisis point, you're practically lapping it. He just doesn't want you to know."

 

"Are you saying the bullying is putting Kurt in physical danger?" Carole looks alarmed, and Sue distantly realizes that she probably isn't as used to dealing with this sort of thing as her new husband. "But Santana promised us that the Cheerios put him in a higher social standing, as long as the glee club was disbanded."

 

"I'm saying that the bullying, if you want to call it that, has moved  _beyond_  physical, and that when Santana said the Cheerios were helping, she meant that they were literally keeping your kid as far away from that deranged lunatic as possible. Finn too, from the sounds of things."

 

"Why has no one told me about any of this?" Burt demands. "And what exactly  _is_ this? I never thought you shied away from telling it like it is, Sylvester."

 

"Fair enough," Sue says. "Mr. Hummel? I think – no, that's not true – there is no doubt in my mind that Dave Karofsky has escalated his attack on your son to sexual violence while I've been gone."

 

Carole's eyes widen and she starts to shake her head, although she is unable to form any sort of vocal protest. Burt doesn't move, but his face goes an unsettling shade of gray.

 

"I would never come to you with something like this if I wasn't sure of it." Sue says. "But I've spent the last few days investigating on my own, and the fact of the matter is that this should have been stopped long ago, and this is definitely a case of the parents being the last to know. Even though I was away from school while this was happening, I would like to apologise on behalf of those who left you in the dark about this, letting this continue, however unintentionally. Kurt hasn't told you because he doesn't seem to have told anyone in some deranged form of self-preservation I haven't fully worked out yet. The students who know are stupid, like all students, and thought they could fix the problem on their own. The teachers who know were unable to procure enough 'official' evidence – which thankfully  _I_  don't care about – or even victim accusations to force our joke of a principle to call you in. The two of you _should_  have known, but you didn't realize because you didn't  _want_  to know. My appendix didn't know, of course, but I can't help but feel it needs to shoulder its share of the blame as well, because if it hadn't viscously attacked me, I never would have been away, and apparently I am the only one in this scenario who would have stopped this entire thing from happening."

 

"Wait, wait, wait," Carole is saying, finally regaining her voice. "No. Just...no. That Karofsky boy is just that – a boy. He's a bully, but that doesn't mean he's capable of something like  _that_. He's been in classes with my son since the second grade, for God's sake!"

 

"Are you saying it's impossible for a teenage boy with low self-esteem and poor impulse control and who takes extreme enjoyment in victimizing those who are weaker than him to be a rapist?" Sue asks. "Or just that rapists are kept separate from humanity until middle school, so that we never have to say we knew one of them when they were cute and harmless?"

 

Sue doesn't hold back as she tells them what she's found out about that situation: about the eyewitness accounts, the way the students and faculty close to Kurt have been unable to stop it, and about how much it has changed their son.

 

"If you don't want to believe it, in the long-run it's your decision," Sue says, finally. "But it won't be the right one. You've said yourself that Kurt hasn't been himself lately. You can continue to write this off as residual angst over Santana's problems, but you have a chance to make this up to Kurt now, and so do I. I am working on getting Karofsky out of McKinley for good, but that's not all Kurt needs to come out of this in one piece. He's going to need his parents to help him."

 

"I believe you," Burt mutters, staring blankly at the coffee table. "He's been so off lately. The only thing he ever does outside of his room is practise with the other Cheerios. He's barely said two words to me in the last month. It's worse than it was before he came out. He's completely abandoned Mercedes, and doesn't even talk about that Dalton kid anymore. Three months ago I couldn't get him to shut about Blaine if I tried. I just...if it wasn't about Santana, I didn't know what else it could be. Finn told us that you were forcing the Cheerios in glee back to the club, and I'd been hoping that would help him, that he would at least get back on the right foot with Mercedes and that he'd stop feeling so lost. Then he called to tell me he was going out with her after practise today and I thought it was all okay. I thought..."

 

He trails off and a new look settles on his face. He doesn't look sick, or shocked, or sad now. He looks murderous, like the time Sue found out her mother had decided to put Jean into a home without consulting with her first. Carole sees it too, and he carefully puts a hand on his shoulder.

 

"Burt?" She asks.

 

This seems to shake him into action. He stands up and thunders out of the room, saying, "That sick  _fuck_  I am going to _kill him_."

 

Carole gets up and runs after him, and Sue thinks maybe she is being a little overdramatic when she starts screeching at Burt to calm down and not do anything they're going to regret until she sees Hummel's father walk back past the living room towards the door with a handgun in tow. Sue rolls her eyes. It's nice that Kurt's parents want to be proactive about this, but she wonders why she's the only one the planet with a sophisticated revenge mechanism.

 

"Oh, put the gun away, idiot," She says, before giving up and going over to him with her hand out expectantly. "It doesn't matter  _why_  you're killing someone in cold blood, they still don't let you get away with it. Don't make your son deal with your prison term on top of everything else. I've already told you I'm dealing with Karofsky myself. I can't do that if you make him a victim. Talk to Kurt, take him to the police where he can make a statement, and let  _me_  get Karofsky off the school grounds."

 

Burt just stares at her coldly, and for a minute Sue isn't sure if anything she says here will make a difference, when suddenly the mood is broken by the door opening and Santana walking in. She still doesn't say anything, but her eyes widen when she takes in Sue and the gun she is removing from Burt's grasp while he is so conveniently distracted.

 

"Santana?" Carole says, regaining her composure so quickly when she realizes she is in the presence of someone who sees her as an authority figure Sue is a impressed. "Honey, why didn't you  _tell_ us?"

 

Santana's brow furrows in bewilderment, but Sue Sylvester knows an act when she sees one, so she spits.

 

"Give it up, Jugs. I've already told them everything. Kurt is in for one hell of a conversation when he gets home."

 

"You and Finn had no right not to go with this to an adult," Burt says, still seething, but much more collected than he had been a minute ago. "Why would you keep this a secret for so long?"

 

"Are you kicking me out?" Is the only thing Santana says.

 

"Santana, of course not," Carole says, in an almost chiding voice. "But we don't understand why you didn't think you could trust us with what you saw happening."

 

"I didn't  _see_  anything," Santana says. "And I  _was_  going to tell you, but...Kurt convinced me maybe it wasn't a good idea."

 

"Why on earth would either of you think that?" Burt demands. "We could have put a stop to this ages ago. You get your butt into the kitchen, young lady. We aren't done talking about this."

 

"I'm calling Finn home now, to hear what he has to say about this, too," Carole adds, making a grab for the nearest cordless phone. "You both have a lot of explaining to do."

 

"What about Kurt?" Santana asks, and Sue has to wonder if the cheerleader is scared by these two, or just intensely grateful to them, because she's already walking towards the kitchen, and Sue is positive the girl isn't this compliant with her own parents.

 

"Let Kurt stay with Mercedes and Blaine for now," Sue says, speaking for Burt and Carole. "You might as well let him hide for a little while longer, now that he's actually being himself for once."

 

When Sue leaves a few minutes later, she can hear Santana saying to Carole, "It doesn't matter anyhow, he'll never tell you anything."

 

Sue doesn't know if Santana is right or not, but she does know that for the next week, no reports are made, and Kurt doesn't come back to school.

 

***

 

In the ensuing week, Sue is surprised to find her total number of sidekicks grow to two. Suddenly, Becky isn't the only Cheerio clinging to Sue's side, mysteriously there in spite of the fact that this is a school and the students should, at some point, take a break from basking in her presence to go pretend to learn something. Quinn is absolutely devoted to Sue, and not because she has realised that she needs to get back in her coach's good graces, which is what Sue originally thought.

 

Quinn is acting like a lost puppy who has unexpectedly found itself back home after being taken in by someone looking for something small and fuzzy to kick. Sometimes Sue catches her looking at Sue and not quite smiling, but almost checking, reassuring herself that this is really happening and everything is going to be okay again. It makes Sue wonder how bad things had actually gotten for the rest of the team, and she wonders if she can trick Quinn into talking about it without looking like she cares  too much.

 

As it turns out Sue doesn't need to worry, because one afternoon after Quinn finishes taking some dictation for a letter that will remedy another problem left in the wake of that Schweitzer imbecile (Sue is a firm believer in training all her Cheerios in the secretarial arts, just in case), Quinn looks at her and says,

 

"I tried. But I couldn't do anything. I didn't know what to do."

 

"What?" Sue says, testily, like she doesn't know what this is about. That Quinn isn't sitting there, presenting her with a problem to see if Sue will toss her aside or help her deal with it. She leans over Quinn's shoulder. "The only reason I'm letting you stay here is because you're the only Cheerio smart enough to spell a polysyllabic word correctly, Fabray. Did you get  _any_ of that?"

 

"I mean with Santana and Kurt. And Becky. And with everything." Quinn is staring at her intensely. "I always thought that I was a good leader, and that the reason you picked me as head Cheerio over and over again is because I was good at being in charge. Not in the way that Rachel is in glee, but  _actually_  being in charge. I thought I was responsible enough to look out for everyone. But when you left, all I did was...watch. It wasn't even because I was scared, I just didn't..."

 

She trails off at the end and Sue takes that as her cue to end this foolishness while simultaneously giving Quinn a lesson in how to be flippant and dismissive without being obtuse and uncaring.

 

"Of course you don't know how to fix everything," she says. "You're not me. What's more, you're not me and you're a teenager. You're an idiot and you are supposed to be. If I ever see you sitting back and watching while  _one_  of these is happening around you in the future? You will be booted from your position so fast it will make your head spin. But I certainly don't expect a self-involved superficial pupa of human being to know what to do when they all happen at once."

 

Quinn is looking at Sue like she doesn't quite believe her, and Sue doesn't like it when people don't follow her without question, so she does the only logical thing and tosses the girl out of her office.

 

"Get out of my face, Fabray," she says. "If you really want to start helping your friends, maybe you should actually start interacting with them. I know for a fact that that horrid Berry creature has said more to Santana this week than you have. That would be a recipe for a terrible week under normal circumstances, but no one deserves that when things are already so insufferable."

 

Quinn gets up, nods to herself, and walks to the door with purpose. She falters when her hand touches the door handle, though, and turns back uncertainly.

 

"What should I say to her? To make it better?"

 

"You  _can't_  make it better," Sue says in exasperation. "But that's not your  _job_. I keep telling you that! Just save her from being forced to talk to Berry. It's not like you don't have anything in common to talk about. Or have you forgotten what happened to you last year? With your parents? When you cheated on your boyfriend? And they found out you were having sex? And they kicked you out? Of your house? Because you were pregnant? Is this ringing any bells for you?"

 

" _All right_." Quinn says, angry and a little exasperated herself, now. "I get it.  _God._ "

 

She storms out of the room, slamming the door behind her and has been gone almost a whole minute before the door opens again, just a fraction, and Sue hears a very quiet, "Thank you."

 

Sue smiles to herself, once she's made sure no one can see her doing it. She'll never admit it to another living soul, but sometimes the high that comes from the wins that don't have trophies to add to her collection are almost better.

 

***

 

Taking pleasure in the physical pain of another person when you are the one who has personally orchestrated said pain in the first place is the mark of a very,  _very_  disturbed person. Which is why Sue feels slightly guilty at the rush of pride and satisfaction that courses through her as Mr. Karofsky rushes onto the field in time to accompany his stretcher-bound devil spawn off of it, the latter's knee twisted at an ungodly and completely unnatural angle. The Adams High coach doesn't even glance up from his clipboard to watch the exit, looking neither happy nor regretful.

 

The Cheerios and glee clubbers scattered throughout the field look unabashedly elated, no doubt thinking that karma has finally stepped in and taken care of things. Quinn, Becky, and Brittany are performing an impromptu cheer off to the side where thankfully no one is looking, and Sam and Artie are laughing as they bump fists and listen to Mike as he bounces from one foot to the other with an enthusiastic grin on his face. Santana is quietly texting someone by the bleachers and would look bored if not for the ferocity with which she is hitting the keys.

 

Beiste is walking along behind the stretcher, occasionally saying words of vague encouragement and comfort to the jock, who is moaning and whimpering in agony. The woman looks unpleasantly green, and maybe a little relieved, which makes sense, and not just because it means Kurt will be safer. With Karofsky gone Finn will be allowed back in the game, and even Sue has to admit that the football is even worse than normal without the mutant, hulking teenager on the field. Ever since the previous week's revelations, the Hudson-Hummels had forbidden Finn from playing sports of any kind where Karofsky was also a participant. Sue could only assume that meant that he had finally given up pretending he didn't know exactly what was wrong with his stepbrother now that his stepbrother was no longer at the school to put up a front for. Keeping him away from Karofsky was an obvious precautionary member, and a wise one. The last thing Sue needs on her plate is trying to get  _two_  of Bieste's football players out of juvenile detention centres.

 

Things finally seem to be coming into place, Sue decides. Before long, things at McKinley will be stable enough to start focusing her end game. Sue Sylvester never does things by halves and the punishment she is preparing for Schweitzer is no exception. She's only saddened that she couldn't somehow manage to convince Barack to promise her the aid of secret service black ops to help her carry it out, but perhaps it was better he be left out after all. Revenge can really only be effectively carried out by the people who have been wronged, after all. By her estimates, Sue already has enough able bodies for this plan to staff a small government operation.


	6. Chapter 5

The plan is to wait for a day or two and then go to Kurt if there still isn't any word from Burt and Carole. She doesn't really expect to hear anything, but Sue would never fault the boy for not wanting to go to the police. In many ways avoidance is the coward's way out and even though Sue knows she's supposed to despise cowards this is one of those circumstances where no matter how hard she tries, a piece of her keeps thinking that after being forced to be the victim, a person should damn well get to be a coward if they want to be. The point of confronting Kurt won't be to make him go to authorities, but just to make sure he isn't pretending nothing is wrong. Ignoring an oppressive and traumatic experience gets in the way of winning, and Sue has gone to the bat for Kurt  _way_  too often to let him end up a loser.

 

Sue is ready for the meeting with Kurt to involve a lot of yelling and crying; a boy near apoplectic with rage, but still relieved to have the opportunity to lash out at someone who is known to take joy in bossing around weaker parties. She is looking forward to it, not because she wants to see one of her Cheerios hurting, but Sue likes to be validated, and she  _knows_  that underneath the awkward passivity he's been wearing lately, Kurt Hummel is not weak. He is a fighter.

 

It would be foolish and incorrect to say Sue is not ready for this confrontation, but it might not be too far off the mark to say she isn't quite prepared for the confrontation to happen  _now_ , mere hours after the latest McKinley football loss as she stays late in her office to perfect her precious nationals routine (is it too ostentatious to bedeck some of the color guard in exotic bird feathers?). Still, her heart swells with pride even as she jumps in her seat upon seeing a livid and potentially bloodthirsty Kurt Hummel come barrelling into her office, slamming the door closed behind him.

 

"Why did you tell them?" Is the first thing out of his mouth, and he damn near screams it at her.

 

"Because they needed to know," she says as she calmly sets down her pen.

 

"You have ruined  _everything_!" He spits. "You have destroyed my life! What the fuck am I supposed to do?! Everyone can think what they want to think about me here and I don't care, but telling Dad and Carole? They think they've let me down or something, and they keep trying to make me go to all these  _people_ to make up for it _._ 'Let's talk to the police, Kurt. Let's go see a  _therapist_. Just to try it out and see if it helps.' Helps with  _what_?  _Nothing happened_. You walk into my  _home_  and start spreading these  _lies_  that I try to leave behind me every day when I walk out the doors of this godforsaken place and now there is  _nowhere_. Everywhere I go now, there's just  _him_."

 

Tears are streaming down his face when he finally stops to take a breath.

 

"You've really gotten yourself worked up over a few rumours you claim not to care about," Sue comments. "If nothing happened, just explain to your parents that we were all wrong. That Santana hasn't been clinging to you like a leech, that your friends  _aren't_  terrified to let you walk through the halls alone, that you haven't achieved the impossible by being a teenager who  _loses_ his sex drive, that you haven't started to attack your best friend to avoid having to talk to her. That no one at this school ever saw  _anything_  grossly inappropriate happening in locker rooms and empty stairwells. Look them in the eye, Kurt, and tell them it was just bullying."

 

Kurt responds in the most reasonable way circumstances allow, and picks up one of Sue's smaller trophies and hurls it at her window before rounding to face her yet again.

 

"You  _promised_ ," he says. "You said you would be watching. Where  _were_  you?!"

 

"You know where I was, Kurt," Sue says. "You know why I wasn't here, and I that never would have left if I had another option, but sometimes life doesn't work out the way we need it to. Things happen and we need to acknowledge that we can't control everything, so we can get back to managing the things that we  _can_."

 

She sits quietly and waits as Kurt stares at her incredulously, looking like he can't decide which of her limbs he should rip off first to facilitate in beating her to death. Finally he just collapses, slipping into the closest chair and burying his head in his hands. Sue can still feel the rage pouring off him in waves, but the intense emotion has obviously drained what little energy he has.

 

"I didn't need your help," he finally manages. "And it wasn't out of control. I had control. I  _did_. I was managing things fine."

 

"You were, huh?" Sue says, thinking about how funny that statement would be if it wasn't so pathetic. "It looks like it. I mean, if you didn't have everything under control, how else do I explain the way you stopped Karofsky the first time it happened and had him transfer schools? But not before you gave him such a talking to that he saw the errors of his ways and turned to Christ – quite the accomplishment for an atheist like yourself, by the way. And, remind me, what happened next? You went skipping off with your boyfriend on a sparkling gay rainbow of sunshine and unicorn farts?"

 

"Coach," Kurt begins tiredly, but Sue cuts him off.

 

"You couldn't even come back to the school to get mad at me properly for spilling the beans until you were positive he was physically incapable of being here. How bad had things gotten for you to honestly think that you were  _controlling_ this?" She asks. "Because the last I checked, giving up and letting a rapist come back for more whenever he gets the urge isn't staying in control of anything."

 

He doesn't even wince at her words now, just looks at her with a face that somehow manages to be expressionless in spite of the tears that continue to course down his cheeks. It's as though he's decided talking and emoting at the same time is too difficult.

 

"I was going to tell after the first time," he says. "I wasn't sure who, but I was going to tell. But it was embarrassing. Everyone thinks I'm a girl already, and now I can't even put up a decent fight? I could have just told Dad I wanted to change schools and run away, but all I could think about was what would I do if Dalton is as bad as McKinley? I'd be alone there, in a strange place without my family. Blaine says  there's no bullying, but...Blaine is popular at Dalton. He wouldn't know. I'm never going to be the popular guy. That's not how my life works. I'd have just ended up with a smarter Karofsky for a roommate."

 

It's an...interesting theory. It's a dumb one, but still interesting. It also sounds like Kurt is reciting something he's heard before, so she asks,

 

"Who told you that?"

 

Kurt picks at his sleeve and shrugs.

 

"Karofsky says a lot of things when he's...most of it is why I'm a slut and a fag that forced him to be this way. That I should be thanking him because I deserve worse, that all queers should burn. But sometimes he talks about how he won't be the last one, because everyone is going to see me and know that it's all I'm good for."

 

"And you never told anyone because you thought you deserved it?" Sue finds it odd that such an obvious, clumsy joke of a mind game would work on a feisty kid like Hummel.

 

"No," Kurt says, squirming a little, and now he's starting to look more like he should be looking, anxious and shaking in his seat. "H-he brought a gun to school one day. After the first time, he tried to corner me and I told him if he ever did it again I'd tell, and then the next day after Cheerios practise he was waiting with it in my car. He made me take him to his house. Both of his parents were gone and..."

 

Kurt trails off and shrugs before continuing.

 

"He had it pointed at my head the whole time, and only told me it was unloaded afterwards. He told me all about how his Dad had taught him how to use it to protect his home against intruders and that he knew where the rounds were. I was so scared I almost threw up, and my hands were shaking too hard to put my pants back on properly. I thought I'd never feel worse than when he was t-tearing into me with a gun in my face, but then he started talking about my dad's business. That it was where his father always got his car worked on, and that he knew where Carole worked, too. He said it was nice that I had such a perfect family, and that it looked like I was getting along with Finn so well. Then he started asking about what had happened to my mom. He wanted to know how she died."

 

Kurt is openly sobbing now, and Sue is slowly and reluctantly moving her chair around the desk, torn between knowing that the kid just needs a little comforting human contact right now and actually having to touch a student. Luckily Kurt has not yet noticed her personal crisis.

 

"I couldn't admit anything to anyone after that. I can't lose my dad," he's crying. "I  _can't_. He's more important to me than any other person in the  _world_  and sometimes I look at Carole and Finn and all I can think is that I'm so happy to have a real family now. I can hardly remember what that felt like, but I still missed it so much after Mom was gone. I can live with anything Karofsky does to  _me_ , but I can't live without my family."

 

"Why did you feel safe enough to tell Santana?"

 

It's a selfish question, but it's one that Sue desperately wants the answer to. She still doesn't know why Kurt confided in the meanest girl at McKinley High when he had a host of other options.

 

"I didn't."

 

The corner of Kurt's mouth turns up a little, in an obvious show of self-disgust instead of any sort of good humour.

 

"She moved into our house, and she likes to have sex with everyone who lets her. Carole found out that she'd already slept with Finn and that made his room even  _more_  out of the question. They weren't going to let her sleep on the couch indefinitely, so they moved her in with me. It was a waste of their time. My nightmares keep her up just as much as a lumpy sofa. I couldn't hide it from her when she was waking me up every half hour to stop me from screaming the house down."

 

"Right," Sue says. Selfish or not, Sue is thankful the change in topic has calmed Kurt down a little. "And you convinced her to stay quiet?"

 

And was  _that_  ever the wrong thing to say, she realizes belatedly as Kurt starts to shudder in an almost violent attempt to force his sobs to stay in check. It doesn't exactly work.

 

"She agreed not to when I told her about the gun thing," he manages. "She said she thought he might be crazy enough to do it."

 

And that tears it, Sue realizes. There is no getting away from hugging the kid now. He's so worked up and crying so hard that he sounds like he is fighting a losing battle against the mother of all asthma attacks. She screws her eyes tightly and is just putting her hands on the arms of the chair to push off and  march over to hug the little monster when she hears it: the door shutting. Softly this time. She glances over in time to see Burt Hummel walk up to his son and grab his hand, hauling him out of his seat and hugging him so fiercely that Sue makes a mental note to recommend the littlest Hummel get his ribs looked at for fear one or two might have cracked. Kurt doesn't seem to mind too terribly though, and hugs Burt back just as tightly.

 

She doesn't know how long Mr. Hummel was standing at the door, or how much of everything he heard, but it's obvious that he's heard more than enough to know that this evening has been a major step forward. He seems like a smart enough man, and Sue is confident he will say the correct things without her supervision. She quickly steps outside before she feels compelled to instigate another hugging moment, one that she may actually be forced to participate in.

 

Santana is waiting outside the door.

 

"You knew he'd be here?" Sue asks.

 

Santana shrugs.

 

"Good job, Jugs," Sue says. "You must get your beneficent but terrifying nature from me. Lucky for you. Come on! Let's give those two some time to talk and get under control. They'll probably leave when the burglar alarm goes off. I think it's high time you were rewarded for all your hard work keeping Porcelain from a total mental breakdown. I can't guarantee you won't have to time share her with Wheels, but how do you feel about getting your lady back?"

 

Santana smiles.

 

***

 

Things don't get much better after that. At least, they don't get much better in Will's eyes. Sue can tell he thinks this whenever she catches him staring at his glee club looking like he wants to cry. He always tries to cover when he thinks the kids are watching, but he is still Will Schuester, and he is still weak. She knows that when he looks at his little loser show choir he only sees Brittany and Santana sitting on opposite sides of the room, the strained and tired looks on Tina's and Rachel's faces as they are kept at arm's length from their friend, and the two glaringly obvious empty chairs where Puck and Kurt should be.

 

Sue thinks Will Schuester is an idiot. Instead of getting bogged down in how much still has to happen until life returns to normal the man should be taking his wins where he can find them. Karofsky is gone. His stupid club is back on course. Kurt is safe, and has even started to talk to Mercedes and Blaine again, if only a little bit. Soon Santana will back to her spiteful mean self. Everything is going wonderfully, but Schuester's problem is he's too impatient.

 

Sue would leave him to wallow in a pool of his own misery, but if she hears him mournfully bleating "Better Man" one more goddamned time in the Spanish room under the guise of looking for more songs to add to the New Directions catalogue she will smother the man with his own hair. That is the only reason she's doing what she's doing now, she tells herself as she marches into the middle of Schue's practise, dragging the fruits of her labour behind her like a wild animal dragging prey back to its quarry.

 

"Here," she barks, flinging Puck out into the centre of the room past the piano.

 

The result is instantaneous. Where there once had been a somewhat listless group of teenagers there is now a clamour of excitement and noise as people jump out of their seats to greet their missing singer back to the group, even Blaine, who possibly hasn't even met Puck. Santana in particular seems especially pleased, if the way she is clinging to him is any indicator. She's jumped up onto him with her arms wrapped tightly around his neck and her feet dangling slightly off the floor. Puck doesn't seem to mind, even though he's mocking the other members and telling him that he's "too badass to have missed any of your sorry asses." He runs a hand down her back absently as he talks.

 

"Sue," Will is blustering. "I-I...how did you manage this? Emma and I have been talking to  _everyone_  trying to help Mrs. Puckerman get Puck's sentence reduced, and all we've come up against are walls."

 

"Oh William," Sue smirks. " _Obviously_  you haven't spoken to  _everyone_  or else I wouldn't have been able to get him out, either. You're just tragically unimportant and probably don't even know the right people  _are._ "

 

"Who did you go to?"

 

"Someone else who knows what it is to be unjustly persecuted for taking a stand against a corrupt authority, and was accordingly highly sympathetic to the plight of young Puckerman. He even paid for his flight down here, which is quite impressive because the man does  _not_  like travelling these days, believe me."

 

Rachel is drifting out of the centre of the happy group surrounding Puck and Sue can tell when she starts to listen to what the adults are saying, due largely in part to the way her head quirks to one side like a dog who is being asked if it would like to go for walkies.

 

"Puck," she asks. "Who did Coach Sylvester bring to the detention centre that convinced the judge to let you out?"

 

Puck immediately grows serious. His body becomes still and he looks straight at Rachel with wide eyes.

 

"He  _shook my hand_ ," he says in an awed voice. "He walked up to me and said...something. I don't know what it was exactly because he's really creaky-sounding and was speaking in, like, Not English or Old Guy or whatever, but then he reached out and he  _shook my hand_."

 

Puck lifts the hand from where it has been resting on Santana and looks at it almost reverently.

 

"I still haven't washed it yet."

 

That ruins the moment for Santana, who practically throws herself to the edge of the group to get away from the offending body part. Sue agrees with her.

 

"But who was it?" Sam asks, looking back and forth from Sue to Puck, eagerly. Sue wonders what it is about glee club that seems to draw in people who may or may not have been Labrador retrievers in past lives.

 

Everyone is now looking at her expectantly, so she just shrugs.

 

"Now I owe Nelson Mandela  _two_  favours," she says.

 

"Noooo waaay," Blaine breathes, and Puck nods at him emphatically before frowning slightly and asking,

 

"Wait, who are you?"

 

Blaine doesn't get a chance to answer before Artie comments,

 

"I've got to say Puck, I'm a little impressed that you know who Nelson Mandela  _is_."

 

"Yeah," Mercedes agrees, smirking a little. "He doesn't seem Jewish enough."

 

"Hey," Puck says, pointing a finger on his precious hand at her. "Don't kid yourself. If there is an oppressed people out there, the Puckmeister knows about them. My people know what it's like to be bullied, and we feel deep respect for those brave enough to take a stand for the little guy."

 

Puck looks like he wants to go on, but he has to stop for Tina, who has started laughing, harder and louder than Sue has ever even heard the girl speak. Puck looks at her, nonplussed and a little annoyed at what he clearly sees as a non sequitur. Sue turns to face Will again and gloat at him when Puck finally continues.

 

"And anyhow, how many humanitarians can you name off the top of your head that would cooler to...meet...than..."

 

Sue rolls her eyes, and her frustration puts a damper on lording over Will, who has started to grin a little, knowing just as well has she does where Puck is going with this.

 

"Oskar Schindler is  _dead_ , you moron!"

 

Sue doesn't have to turn around, she can  _feel_  little punk deflate, shoulders hunching ever so slightly as he sadly whispers,

 

"Oh."

 

***

 

It takes another week of waiting, but eventually the analysis of Brittany's deranged and utterly unique mind comes back and as usual, Sue was right about that, too.

 

"It's the anaesthetic!" The dumb blonde yells one afternoon at the top of her lungs by way of greeting as she runs into Cheerios practise a whole three minutes late. Her cell phone is clutched in her hand and she's barrelling towards Santana full-tilt. Santana looks a little like there's a runaway train bearing down on her and Sue can't fault her for looking slightly terrified. Still the girl is happy enough to manage a breathless, albeit confused laugh when Brittany leaps up into her arms, wrapping her arms and legs around Santana as tightly as possible.

 

"Ugh, get a room," Quinn mutters, but her eyes are lighting up, ever so slightly as she starts to realize what she's seeing. "What do you mean anaesthetic, Brittany?"

 

Brittany ignores this perfectly reasonable question in favour of babbling to the girl currently staggering to stay upright,

 

"Artie and I talked about it and even though I can't stay with him and start sleeping with you again, he understands how important you are and that sometimes when I'm happy I like to kiss the people who are making me happy and right now you are making me happier than I've ever been in my life and I really, really don't like your parents and I think  they are very mean and  _they're_ the crazy stupid ones and I want them to  _see_ how stupid they were."

 

" _What_?!" Santana asks, laughing again.

 

Brittany just grins and tosses the phone in her hand to Quinn.

 

"Turn on the video camera," she instructs before returning her focus to Santana.

 

"We knew what we were doing," she says. "And Artie was really sad that your parents hurt you, so he promised he'd be okay if it was just this once. Plus, he said it sounded hot. It's for your mom and dad, but we're gonna have to get him a copy."

 

Santana opens her mouth to say something but doesn't get a chance before Brittany's mouth attaches to hers and suddenly Sue has two cheerleaders going hot and heavy with each other in the middle of practise while a third records the incident for posterity, chortling wickedly. Sue blames it on the decline of America's values,  _Beverly Hills 90210_ , and Will Schuester. In no particular order. Still, there's no point in letting the grass grow under her feet, and there's no point in entertaining this stupidity any longer than necessary.

 

"Becky," she starts, but is interrupted by a determined,

 

"I'm on it, Coach," her favourite and most reliable cheerleader is beside her, letting the two horny lesbians have it with Sue's spray bottle, set to jet stream.  
 

***

 

As it turns out, Brittany is not suffering from an allergic reaction to anaesthetic. Mrs. Pierce explains when she comes to pick up her daughter after practise to a crowd of Cheerios who decided to wait to hear the story from somebody sensible.

 

"Synaesthesia?" Quinn repeats. "What's that?"

 

"It's a condition that drastically alters your sensory and cognitive perception. Basically it causes you to experience things through more than one sense, or on multiple levels."

 

"I don't get it," Quinn says.

 

"Well, for example, Brittany doesn't see words on a page in black and white. Her brain registers each letter of the alphabet in a specific, fixed colour. She sees the same shape as us, but it in Technicolor, I guess. The same with numbers. Each number from 0 to 9 is a single colour."

 

"No, they're not," Brittany says. "Two looks like soap bubbles in the summertime. It's shiny and it's every colour dancing. Two is my  _favourite_  number. But I'm going to have to talk to my math teacher. She keeps marking my tests wrong, but I'm putting down the right things so I don't think that's fair."

 

"We've talked about this on the phone already, Brittany." Mrs. Pierce says, patiently. "You can't write down the colour and get marks for it. No one knows how it works except for you."

 

Brittany smiles sheepishly at Sue and offers,

 

"I thought everyone knew that was how it went. I didn't know I was the only one who could see it."

 

"In her case, the Synaesthesia is very severe," Mrs. Pierce explains, needlessly. "And it's not just the colour thing. There might be more that we find out about later, but for now it sounds like some words have specific flavours when she speaks, and she physically see music and sound. Combine that with her somewhat overactive imagination and you get...Brittany."

 

Santana is looking at her friend like she is made of bone china and she would like to keep her on a shelf and just look at her until she's old and gray.

 

"This is so much cooler than dyslexia," she breathes.

 

"I know, right?" Brittany says, excitedly. "I'm going to learn how to draw so I can show you what Lady Gaga really looks like. Those hoof shoes are really accurate."

 

"You should tell your parents now," Quinn says, turning to Santana suddenly. "Tonight. So you don't have to worry about it anymore."

 

"Good plan, Q," Sue says magnanimously, because she'd been about to suggest that very thing before Quinn had stolen her thunder. "Get your things together Santana. I'll drive you over. Bring Skittles along. You have catching up to do."

 

"Skittles?" Santana asks.

 

"Taste the rainbow," Brittany and Mrs. Pierce both respond together immediately, before Mrs. Pierce continues with, "I'm glad this mess with the Lopezes can be sorted this evening, and Santana I want you to know that we still would love to have you over as much you and Brittany would like, but Britt can't go with you this evening. Her father and I have a lot of things we have to talk to her about. Now that we know what's happening we want to see if there's anything we can do to make her school easier. We're going to be setting up meetings in Columbus and we want to get started as soon as possible."

 

"Oh. Okay," Santana looks understandably reluctant to say goodbye to Brittany so quickly, and Sue knows that the nervous, uncertain look on her face means she doesn't necessarily want to face her parents again with only her Coach for support. Even though that should  _really_  be enough for anyone.

 

"Santana?" Quinn asks, cautiously. "Can I come with you? I mean, since there's room in the Le Car now that Brittany won't be there?"

 

"I guess," Santana shrugs. "I mean, do what you want. I don't care."

 

"I want to come," Quinn says decisively, and that's that.  
 

***

The drive over to the Lopez house is a quiet one, especially on Sue's part. The two girls have been relegated to the backseat because Jean has permanent dibs on shotgun whether she is in the car at the time or not.

 

"Even Nelson had to sit in the back," she explains, and if the arrangement also saves Sue from playing the role of agony aunt  _again_ , that's just an added bonus.

 

They are about halfway there and Santana looks like she's ready to jump out of the moving car when Quinn finally reaches across the seat to take her hand and ask,

 

"Are you okay?"

 

Santana turns and looks at Quinn intently for a long moment before she asks,

 

"Do you regret your decision? After the Beth thing, I mean."

 

"You mean the adoption?" Quinn asks. "Sometimes. Okay, a lot. But I know it was the right thing to do."

 

"No," Santana shakes her head. "Your mom. You went back she told you she was wrong. Do you wish you hadn't?"

 

Quinn lets go of Santana's hand and pulls away. Clearly no one has ever asked her this before. She's quiet for a long time.

 

"A little bit," She finally says. "I don't...I love my mother, and I know that a lot of what happened was my dad's decision, and that she didn't want it to turn out that way. But still...it happened, you know? She never did a thing to stop it. She just sat and watched. I know she's sorry now, she told me she was. And after I gave Beth up, I was sad and lonely and I thought if I couldn't have my daughter, at least I could have my  _mother_ , so I said yes. Still, sometimes I wish I'd stayed with Mercedes longer. Mom and I don't talk. She likes to pretend it never happened. But it did, and sometimes I  _need_  to talk about it. Sometimes I need to be mad at her, but it's like there's no point, because I already let her get away with abandoning me when I needed her the most. I worry that she might think she can get away with doing it again the next time."

 

They drive the rest of the way in silence.  
 

***  
 

After their initial arrival, which consisted of Sue almost battering down the front door with her now sore shoulder before Dr. Lopez had a chance to unbolt the deadlock and angrily waving a photocopied letter from Brittany's specialists explaining her diagnoses specifically for the sake of the Lopezes, Sue and Quinn take a backseat to the action. Santana tries to join them at first, more jittery than ever as she watches her parents read the letter, but before long she is dragged into the thick of it, looking lost and more than a little irritated to be on the receiving end of so many tearful apologies and desperate hugs.

 

Quinn is familiar enough with the Lopez home to slip away and make some tea, which she holds out just out of reach of Mrs. Lopez, luring her away from Santana, who she hasn't been showing any sign of releasing. After her parents have calmed down a little and are sipping their tea as they talk to their daughter about all the things that have been happening since she left, Santana sits down next to Quinn on the opposite facing couch, and leans into her slightly. Sue remains standing in the entryway to the living room with her arms crossed.

 

"You're awfully quiet, Santana," Dr. Lopez finally says, looking at her worriedly. "These last few weeks have been hard on you. Are you feeling alright?"

 

"I'm sorry. You were doing such a good job of doing my talking for me I thought that was what you wanted," Santana says, and her eyes widen slightly like she's surprised at what is coming out of her mouth.

 

"Santana, we are  _so sorry_ ," Mrs. Lopez says, her eyes welling up yet again as she sets down her tea. "I feel  _sick_  that you had to through all this. Thank God you're coming back where you belong. You must have felt so alone. "

 

"If I did it's your fault," Santana says, quietly. Sue thinks she might sound a little angry, but that emotion is being buried under all the hurt in her voice. "Why didn't you trust me?"

 

"Santana," Dr. Lopez tries. "It has nothing to do with trusting you. Even the most trustworthy people can make mistakes, and they need to be held accountable for them. I'm just so relieved that things have turned out fine."

 

"They haven't turned out  _fine_ , Dad." Santana says, and  _there's_  the anger fighting to the surface. "Nothing is  _fine_  right now. I did not make a mistake. You and Mom made the mistake. I think about Aunt Ana  _all_  the time, probably more than you guys do, especially during the last two months. Sometimes it scares me that I like having sex so much, and that I like the power it gives me over other people, but never because I thought I was like that man. I always make sure the other person wants it, too. And Brittany?"

 

Santana's voice cracks a little. Sue hasn't heard her talk so much the whole time she's been back.

 

"I would  _never_ ,  _ever_  hurt Brittany that way, and you should have known. She's the best friend I've ever had my whole life. I can't even fight with her properly because she gets that look on her face and all I want to do is make it leave. God, Mom! I've even talked to you about the fights I've had with her in the middle of the night about how much _I_  hurt when I've hurt  _her_ , and you still believed a complete stranger when he said he had a  _hunch_?"

 

She's crying as Quinn rubs her back and makes quieting, soothing sounds.

 

"You looked at me and you saw  _Karofsky_. Now I'm looking at you and it's all I can think about."

 

"Karofsky?" Mrs. Lopez asks, looking slightly panicked. "Santana, I don't understand. We've told you, we're sorry. We're _so_  sorry, but can't we please move past this?"

 

Sue sees Quinn's posture stiffen from her vantage point across the room, and her hand pause briefly.

 

"I don't want you to move past this," Santana says, slowly. "Kurt's dad and Finn's mom have told me I can stay with them for as long as I want. I don't want to never see you two again, but I can't pretend I don't hate you right now. If you want me back I have to know that this can't happen again because I can't go through this a second time."

 

She stands up and mutters, "I have to pack some more things."

 

"Do you need help?" Quinn starts to rise, but Santana makes "stay" motions with her hands and wanders off, obviously needing some time to regroup.

 

Sue is more than happy to stand there and scowl at Santana's parents as she revels in their discomfort and embarrassment, but Quinn has not yet learned how enjoyable a hobby this can be and tries to fill the silence.

 

"Ummm," she says, wittily, until her mind suddenly lights on a topic and clings to it fiercely. "Oh! I was talking to Brittany before I left with Santana and Coach Sylvester."

 

She roots around in her gym bag until she triumphantly retrieves Brittany's cell phone.

 

"She wanted me to show you something."

 

The fifteen minutes that follow before Santana re-emerges are very quiet, and very,  _very_  awkward.


	7. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Forgive the OOC Warblers - this was written before they got personalities on the show :)

"Sue!  _Sue!_ " Will's slightly frantic voice carries across the commotion in the parking lot, but he doesn't seem to be having much luck coming over to talk to her face-to-face. Sue can hardly contain herself. This is why she requested a rambunctious one from the petting zoo. Will gives up eventually and settles for half-shouting at her after he's closed half the distance, his ridiculous fuzzy head bobbing and swaying as he hauls back on the lead and tries only semi-successfully to remain upright.

 

"Sue, I  _don't_  understand why we need this goat!"

 

"Strategy William!" Sue calls back. "You need to trust me on this one. You're very new to revenge and you don't understand all the nuances."

 

"But why do we have to take it to Schweitzer's in  _my_ car?"

 

Sue would answer but she's too busy  _laughing her gorgeous ass off_. She would have started inviting Will to join her on her revenge missions  _years_  ago if she'd known how gullible he could be when he was trying to be a team player. It's been a month since Santana has decided not to move back in with her parents and everything has finally returned to an even keel. It would be a lie to say that  things are perfect for Sue, or that they ever will be again, but the problems she still finds herself faced with are nothing she can't handle.

 

Kurt is gone, and Sue doesn't think he will ever be coming back to McKinley. The day he returned to school flanked by Mercedes and Blaine to pick up his things and announce his transfer to Dalton had been a hard one on her Cheerios, but at least it had given her the opportunity to teach them how to master a convincing game face when you've been crying two minutes earlier. This was before she pulled some more strings and managed to brilliantly list Kurt as simultaneously registered at two separate schools, of course. The board was predictably accommodating when the extent of their negligence in Hummel's protection had been laid out for them. They were desperate to do whatever was necessary to keep the story from going public, perhaps by way a hard-hitting opinion piece on the local news. Just to bring up an example completely at random.

 

His enrolment at McKinley is only in name so he can continue competing with the Cheerios until after Nationals. The board hesitantly asked if maybe she could just find a replacement for Kurt in the actual student body, but Sue will be damned if anyone thinks she will waste her time scouring the halls of this black hole of talent looking for someone else who can sing Mozart. A good singer is hard to come by. Schuester knows this. She can see the way he looks at Kurt as he waves hello on his way in to practise with the team when they run into each other on the weekends (he only comes in on weekends, because of some stupid reason about homework and sleep preventing him from making the two hour commute to Lima for weekdays). Schue always asks how Blaine is doing, and Sue always smirks because she knows he was hoping she'd arrange it so both boys could compete with New Directions as well, but there is no way that will ever happen. Sue wants the glee club to stick around, but she certainly doesn't want them to  _win_.

 

The most frustrating thing about her triumphant return has been how long it has taken her to arrange this moment. Sue has a very strong sense of both justice and the dramatic, so the attack on Schweitzer couldn't be slipshod. Everything had to be perfectly arranged, and all the right people needed to be involved in ways that would best maximize their effect.

 

The first person Sue finds herself relying on is, surprisingly, Irma. Figgins has been predictably suspended indefinitely because of his appalling and ineffective leadership skills, and Sue once again finds herself acting as interim principal, which seriously cuts into her plotting time. Luckily Evelyn surprised her by primly walking into Sue's new office, taking a seat, and saying,

 

"My husband, Carl Howell, has a cousin who is a detective. Every year he likes to give back to the community by spying on and then destroying someone who he feels demoralizes Lima's civic pride. While I took a very firm stand against this when I first heard about it, I have since taken it upon myself to see that he is familiarised with the particulars of Schweitzer's time at the school, and the fallout that resulted. He agreed to make him this year's project."

 

"And what did your detective say?" Sue asks, not looking up from drafting a letter to the parents of the student body requesting that their offspring be tossed in the showers with more regularity to help battle the overwhelming stench of angst permeating the halls.

 

"He says Schweitzer is very good at obeying the law, but only barely. If we are willing to stretch the truth a little here and there, he would very likely be run out of town and never find another job in the United States ever again."

 

"I like your new cousin's style, Inka," Sue says. "He's wrong, of course. Schweitzer  _is_  a criminal, but I can't expect a detective to be good enough to find the proof of that. I'm normally opposed to letting others do my legwork for me, but this man obviously knows what he's doing, and I'm much too busy to send Schweitzer to jail for things he  _has_  done. Make sure your PI's aware his only job will be fact gathering. I'll handle the rest of it."

 

There's a bit of a sticky moment after that, when Pillsbury gets a suspicious look (which actually looks more like that Disney elephant holding in a sneeze than actual suspicion) and is suddenly curious about why Sue would hire a known criminal to coach the Cheerios in the first place. The potential trouble is averted by Sue's quick-thinking response of "If we forbade every perpetrator of the odd felony the chance to mold the minds of the next generation, this school would never have the opportunity to erect the statue I plan to propose to the PTA next month in my honour, now would it?"

 

Beiste isn't as interested in helping out this time, because she's still a little upset about what she did at the football match, but Sue does manage to convince her to make the anonymous tip when the time comes to set things in motion, after she has carefully spent two weeks planting evidence.

 

"I don't understand why you can't make the call," she protests. "I'm all for Schweitzer getting what's coming to him, but I'm not sure I want to be the one who sets it all off."

 

Sue rolls her eyes.

 

"You're not," she promises, shortly. "The ball is already rolling. It has been for a long time, I just need someone to call the crime hotline for me to make sure things  _keep_  rolling."

 

"Why can't  _you_  call them?" Beiste demands.

 

" _Because_ ," Sue hisses. "They've installed recognition software that's been specifically programmed to hang up on my voice."

 

" _Why_?"

 

"It's a long story, but it involves a horrifying and demoralizing assault on my person several years ago that involved my lawn and an entire army of those demonic and perverted garden gnomes gathered outside my bedroom window."

 

The long pause and incredulous stare is almost worth it when Beiste finally just says "...Okay" before picking up the phone and dialling the police to tell them,

 

"Hi. I wanted to let someone know about this man I know. I just found out that he's involved in some sort of identity theft ring. He goes by Albert Schweitzer... Yes, that's what I said. Albert Schweitzer... Well, I guess it  _could_  just be a coincidence, but does seem pretty incriminating, doesn't it?"

 

It's one of the biggest online crime rings ever taken down with ties to the US (thanks to Sue's idea to seamlessly implicate Schweitzer as a key leader in an already-existing and very notorious group of Internet scammers in Nigeria), and the news is abuzz with the arrest for weeks. Now that things have calmed down a little bit and Schweitzer is cooling his heels in a jail cell, Sue decides it's time to carry out part two of her plan.

 

She knows that Schweitzer is an intensely private person who doesn't like people to know about who he really is. Or, more accurately, he doesn't want people to know where he keeps the things that matter to him. Just in case authorities try to seize anything. Schweitzer never figured out that you can't hide anything from Sue Sylvester. Which has led her to where she is today: laughing at Will Schuester and a goat as she stands next to a school bus preparing to take roll call for what will undoubtedly be the most educational field trip the students lined up in front of her will ever embark on.

 

"Okay troops!" She calls out into the bullhorn. "Let's get started. When you get to the front, please list your name and grievance with the former Coach Schweitzer. I will check you off and then you are welcome to climb aboard for a return trip to Terror Town!"

 

Sue sets down her bullhorn, adjusts her glasses and clipboard, and smiles in satisfaction.

 

"Name please."

 

"Finn Hudson."

 

"Grievance?"

 

"..."

 

"Why are you mad at Coach Schweitzer."

 

"Oh! Uh, I guess because he didn't help Kurt and he destroyed glee club. Is that the right answer?"

 

"Good enough," Sue says, and jerks her thumb over her shoulder. "Get in there, you ox. Next!"

 

"Coach..." Quinn starts, uncertainly.

 

"Name please."

 

"Are we going to be breaking the law today?"

 

"Name. Please."

 

"Coach?"

 

Sue heaves a sigh. Catholics...

 

"Since you're so worried about it, Girl Whose Name I Have Yet To Learn But Who I Feel Might Be Slightly Hypocritical For Worrying About Doing The Right Thing Only When There Are Other People Watching, no. We will not be breaking the law. We are going to a storage locker. Which I have a key for. Which was given to me. You are simply helping me honour a promise I made to an old friend. Whether he is actually thankful afterwards or agrees that we were both talking about the same thing remains to be seen but I don't see how that's your problem.  _Name please_."

 

After Sue has accounted for all of the Cheerios and New Directions, and after she has made sure Schuester has gotten his new friend properly packed into his car (where he is currently trying to eat the upholstery), she makes one last patrol of the area, making sure no people or supplies are left behind. She knows nothing has been forgotten, but she's very aware of an important participant who has yet to arrive. She doesn't want Kurt to miss out on this. Santana said he initially wanted to stay away from the entire affair, but had shown definite signs of waffling after listening to her talk about her revenge fantasies on the phone for half an hour.

 

"I was in the room with her while they were talking," Finn says, and he looks a little green. "I didn't know there were so many ways to rip off balls. I mean, shouldn't there just be  _one_? You reach out, you grab, and then you pull. But I guess I'm not as smart as Santana and Kurt are, because they came up with ideas for a  _really_  long time."

 

"I think he'll show up," Santana smirks. "After Finn left to cry in bathroom, we talked about what we could do to his furniture and wardrobe, too."

 

But still, in spite of Santana's confidence, Sue starts to think Kurt has backed out, which is a shame so far as his Sue Therapy is concerned (sessions consist of doing whatever Sue tells him to during practise, and occasionally taking arson field trips – the trouble with so many trauma recovery programs out there is that they lack simplicity). Just as she's resigned herself to accept his absence and begins to climb onto the bus, she hears a car pull up and park around the corner of the school. A moment later several doors open and close.

 

"You guys better not have made us late. Coach does  _not_  like it when people keep her waiting," she hears Kurt snit, in top form as usual.

 

"I told you we didn't have to bring them," Blaine says. "They're just going to make idiots of themselves, anyhow. This is going to be so embarrassing. You know she's the only reason they watch the news, right?"

 

Sue perks up at that. She has no idea who's horning in on her revenge mission, but she could be willing  to overlook it if she gets groupies out of the deal. One can never have too many sycophants.

 

"Oh man, I'm so nervous," says a new voice, male, but that's not surprising since Dalton is an all-boys school. "Do you think I can get her to sign something while we're there? Do you think she'll yell at me if I ask?"

 

Sue will probably yell at them whether they ask or not, she thinks.

 

"Why do you sound so excited by the possibility?" Kurt asks before adding, "Never mind. And she'll probably yell at you whether you ask or not."

 

"I'm going to ask her what she thinks about ventriloquists," says a fourth voice. "Not that they've been in the news lately, but I watched her piece about the Burger King and I bet her stance on puppets is  _epic_."

 

"Porcelain!" Sue yells, because when she has greatness to achieve standing still to hear about how great she is gets tiresome. Even if it's true. "Tell Preppy and your little friends to light a fire under their slow sorry asses or I'm leaving all of you behind."

 

Kurt and his entourage obediently come trotting into view after that and Sue can see that her two fans are boys about Kurt's and Blaine's age, and they are both craning their heads to get a better look at her. Sue merely climbs back off the bus and pulls her clipboard out again. If she makes sure to stand to her full height and place her feet slightly farther apart than normal to appear more imposing, that's fine. She knows no one would dare call her on it.

 

"Name please."

 

"...What?" Blaine looks caught off guard. "It's me. Blaine. You called me last night to make sure I was coming?"

 

"Grievance against the former Coach Schweitzer?"

 

Blaine almost looks like he's going to ask more stupid questions, but an elbow to the side and a harshly whispered "Just go with it!" from Kurt changes his mind and he just says,

 

"It's hard standing up to people who hurt you, so when you have to do it, and the person in a position of power over you doesn't do anything to help or even  _care_? That's disgusting."

 

"Good answer, Preppy," Sue says as she turns to Kurt. She doesn't even get a chance to take a breath before Kurt has cut her off with,

 

"Kurt Hummel and sometimes he came to school wearing mismatched tracksuits."

 

Sue lets his evasiveness slide, mostly because they are late, and mismatching tracksuits  _are_ a pretty good reason to swear revenge on a person. She focuses her attention on the two strange boys, asking the Asian one first,

 

"Name please."

 

There is silence as the boy simply stares at her in what could only be called adoration until Kurt sighs in frustration and says,

 

"His name is Wes and he's an idiot."

 

"Thank you, Kurt," Sue says. "But idiots do not ride on the Sue Sylvester Express, so when I ask for his grievance, I'd better hear some talking if he wants to continue basking in my presence.  _Grievance_?"

 

Wes starts into action as he finally says,

 

"Oh! Well...Blaine's kind of a bitch when he's mopey, and he moped a  _lot_  because of this whole thing. And we lost our lead Warbler for almost a month while you were trying to fix it. And Kurt's a really great guy, and I've met Santana and she's  _crazy_  awesome, so why  _wouldn't_  I want to bring down the guy who hung them out to dry like that?"

 

"All that talking and you still left out the part how you talked to Santana for five minutes when Kurt was dropped off and all you've been able to talk about since is how  _you_  want to carry  _her_ babies," Blaine says softly. Not softly enough, if the fist he gets aimed at his shoulder is any indicator.

 

Sue turns to the black kid, who is standing there, patiently waiting his turn.

 

"You! Name?"

 

"I'm David," He says, more relaxed than his friend, but definitely not acting naturally, with his big, conspiratorial smile and aggressive body language. If Sue didn't know any better she would think he was trying to make a move on her. Or get the jump on her. Either way, she's not about to let her guard down.

 

"Grievance?"

 

David shrugs.

 

"There was this one time Blaine's car was getting its oil changed so he borrowed mine to drive down here and obsess over Kurt," David says, eyeing Blaine accusatively. "He forgot to top up my gas. I ended up waiting for roadside assistance for  _three hours_.  _And_ it was snowing."

 

Sue's had enough.

 

"Whatever," she says, rolling her eyes as she climbs behind the wheel. "Get in here, you over privileged acappella freak shows. We've got a life to destroy."  
 

***

 

All in all, Sue considers her day a success, although she is reminded why she usually doesn't allow tagalongs to the more hands on parts of her schemes. Real people are so impulsive. Things don't go badly, exactly, but there are a few moments when  they don't go as planned, and Sue doesn't like having her calm sea of revenge disturbed by things like Noah Puckerman demonstrating wrestling holds with Artie Abrams, of all people, in the vehicle she is currently driving. At least makes Wes and David happy, as it results in a lot of shouting, and in the end Sue decides there are worse things that could happen than giving the audience what they want.

 

They start out by rummaging through the locker and removing items of great significance and/or historic value. Sue is planning to send most of them through her underground network of international spies to various police authorities around the world so the proper owners can get them back. Some items will  _not_  be going back through official channels to ensure the items will be going back to proper owners. This is just as easy to achieve though, as Sue is practical enough to have an extensive network of international thieves and vigilantes to call on as well.

 

Puck latches on to this latter fact with expected ferocity, and the students listen to him explain about Jewish art collectors and Nazis for a little while, as they gather around a picture of fat ballerinas. Soon their interest wanes and they go back to more exciting things, such as Brittany adamantly insisting that the old worn out teddy bear in her hands is the original Winnie the Pooh.

 

"I watched a show about it once," she says. "That writer guy took his son to a zoo and this talking teddy bear named Winnie was in a pen with a grizzly. The little boy climbed in and saved it and the man wrote about the 100 Acre Wood because he was so proud. I'm serious! Look, ask  _him_  if you don't believe me."

 

Sue sees that Artie has the situation well in hand as he asks her if,  _maybe_ , she might have fallen asleep waiting to watch the interview with the cartoon character she was undoubtedly expecting, and goes to check on the others. Becky and some of the Cheerios are feeding the goat pages from Schweitzer's diary. He had been planning to leave it behind after his death as his legacy to the world, an idea Sue always told him was stupid. There's no point in holding off on letting people know about your greatness. Better to do it when you're alive and people can grovel. That's why she publishes her autobiography every year.

 

Tina and Mike are going through an impressive LP collection with David, saving the priceless first and rare recordings, and what they decide is good music, snapping the others. Mike is currently holding up the  _High School Musical 2_ soundtrack and saying,

 

"Seriously? They made this available in  _vinyl_? I can't believe that bastard let this  _touch_  Cab Calloway."

 

Tina laughs as he dropkicks it across the room, but Sue catches David looking where it's landed sadly when he thinks no one is watching. Quinn and Rachel are arguing over what to do with some of the furniture as a couple Cheerios, and Sam and Finn, wisely stand back and stay out of it.

 

"Quinn I don't understand why you of all people would want to go against the wishes and  _orders_  of your commander," Rachel is saying haughtily. "Coach Sylvester was very clear that if the item had no  _important_  value, it was to go with us to the bonfire. There aren't even any toxic chemicals in this that could poison the air and damage my voice. There is  _no reason_  not to burn the armoire just because it's expensive. Look, it's only fair it's destroyed. Because there aren't  _two_ of them and as we are both captains and leaders of our respective high school demographics, we can't decide this based on hierarchy."

 

"Look Manhands," Quinn snaps back. "I already told you that I'm taking it home with me. Don't get jealous because  _my_ boyfriend noticed first."

 

"What in the name of Sue Sylvester is going on over here?" Sue demands, but not of Quinn or Rachel, because she hates to break up a good fight. Sam shrugs.

 

"I don't know. Finn and I were just goofing off with the wardrobe and then the girls started trying to kill each other."

 

"Sam noticed it looked like the closet in the movie with the talking lion," Finn says a little helplessly as he watches his girlfriend and his ex get ready to come to blows. "So we were climbing in and out pretending we were going to Narnia until Kurt and Blaine heard and started to laugh at us, like they're so much more mature or whatever. But I guess the movie used to be a book or something? And both Rachel and Quinn grew up reading it. And now they both want the closet."

 

"I see," Sue says. "I think I might have found my newest Sue's Corner in that statement somewhere, once I determine whether I'm for or against polyamory. Carry on."

 

She wanders off to check in on Lackluster Back Handspring, who is teaching Mercedes and that Wes kid how to juggle with Swarovski, and sees Schuester eyeing a grand piano with great interest.

 

"Already spoken for, William," She calls out. He deflates beautifully, but that's only icing on the cake for Sue, because the piano really  _has_  been set aside for Brad. There have to be some perks to being in witness protection, after all, and being stuck in that choir room certainly isn't one of them.

 

Santana, Blaine and Kurt are going through clothing, and Sue is only slightly surprised at all the name brands in the Destroy pile. She raises an eyebrow at Kurt, who shrugs and says,

 

"Why would I want to keep a McQueen that he liked enough to buy anyhow?"

 

"I don't understand why he had all these designers in the first place," Santana says. "It's not like he was a good dresser."

 

"I bet he just liked things that cost a lot," Blaine says, carrying over another box. "But if you're looking for clothes that actually meant something for Schweitzer, I think I found the jackpot."

 

He opens the box and tips it over. Small blankets, tiny jumpers, and the odd pacifier roll out.

 

"Baby box!" Santana and Kurt crow triumphantly and for a moment Sue thinks Kurt's about to jump up and kiss Blaine, he's so excited. Judging by the way Kurt suddenly gets quiet and pale, and the smile on his face freezes before he becomes intensely interested in rummaging through the Discard pile, she's not too far off the mark. If Blaine noticed anything he's studiously pretending he hasn't, but Santana leans over slightly and whispers something in Kurt's ear, smiling wickedly. Kurt's body relaxes as he snorts a grateful laugh, shoving at Santana. Sue for her part, pretends not to feel proud of her squad.  
 

***  
 

The bonfire is a great success as well, and Sue decides that she doesn't see the truck headed back to Lima instead of to the fire pit outside the city limits with the others. They can keep some of the evidence, it won't make any difference. Schweitzer will never be dumb enough to go after anyone when he finally realizes what was done, not with Sue knowing what she does and could choose to use against him at any time. Part of the genius in framing him for crimes he hasn't committed is that she still has insurance to prevent any kind of retaliation. If he ever tries to get even she can send him back to prison for what he really  _has_  done, and he probably won't be out again until he's 90. It's foolproof, so Sue lets the kids make off with the odd trophy if it makes them feel any better about everything that's happened, and in the case of Kurt and Santana, doesn't make any fuss if they haven't taken anything.

 

She doesn't say anything at all the red eyes around the fire that evening, either. Brittany seems to cuddle up to Santana a little more than usual, her face buried in the brunette's hair, which has been let down for the time being. Kurt's new stepbrother awkwardly throws an arm across Kurt's shoulders who doesn't acknowledge the show of affection except to lean slightly towards it as he viciously pokes at the burning pyre. Things definitely aren't good yet, but today hasn't been about making everything perfect again, after all. It's just a way to turn the page and move on. There's no point in pretending nothing's happened in the last several months, but sometimes it's good to officially mark that something is over, to signal the people still struggling that it's okay to start figuring out how to let go.

 

It's getting late, and people are starting to drift towards the bus, no doubt hoping their teachers will get the hint and take them home. Sue thinks it's a little suspect that a group of teenagers would be losing a battle to exhaustion, but maybe excessive emotion of the day has taken its toll on them. But probably not, she decides after swiping Puck's phone to find texts between him and an unknown correspondent about a party with lots of free alcohol at a home conveniently close to McKinley. So long as they're no longer officially in her care when they start throwing up on each other's shoes, she supposes she doesn't really care.

 

She gives a call to order and sets about getting the fire sufficiently doused out. She's made arrangements to get the remains returned to the storage locker, but Will is staying behind to supervise that part. Because he's a team player and a sucker. Sue looks at him fondly, like you look at a dog who tries to tear off its own feet because its confused them for a threat. He's a special kind of stupid, and although she'd never say it to his face, sometimes the stupidity is endearing. So long as he doesn't jump on the furniture.

 

"Hello, Shannon?" She watches as he talks into his cell phone, absently petting the goat who is leaning into the contact as it nibbles lovingly on Will's sleeve. "Yes, I think it went well. The kids had a great time and I think it was really cathartic for everyone. I feel like a bad person for even admitting it, but suppose I kind of see why she's like that now. It feels good. I was just calling to ask if you've ever considered the possibility of getting a mascot for the football team? One that's not Ben Israel in a duck costume or whatever that thing's supposed to be."

 

He glances at the goat as he pauses to listen to whatever Beiste is saying on the other end of the line.

 

"Oh, no reason, I guess. I was only thinking that  sometimes real animals do a lot to build school spirit."


End file.
